Partners in Crime (Sort of)
by SirFangirl
Summary: Bucky's on the run from HYDRA and quite possibly the law. Lana's on the run from HYDRA as well, but for different reasons. She also needs someone to watch her back for her. Bucky seems like the right person for that. Together, they will run as far as they can go, just like partners in crime.
1. Partnering Up

**New York City, New York. May 6, 2014.**

The Winter Soldier- no, Bucky, that's his name- walked through the empty alleyway with shifty eyes. It's been a month since the events that happened at D.C. A month since he pulled that man -Steve, that's his name- from the river. A month since HYDRA collapsed along with SHIELD. So far, Bucky has had freedom for a month. Freedom hasn't been quite sweet though. Granted, it's better than being HYDRA's assassin with over two dozen kills (this is something Bucky knows for sure; he remembers all of them), but he hasn't showered for weeks; he's starving, as food doesn't always come cheap or clean; and he is currently walking through possibly New York's most dangerous neighborhood, Hell's Kitchen. Bucky wouldn't have gone through if he knew what this neighborhood was notorious for. But by the time a mugger gave him an idea where he was, Bucky was too far in to try and go back. In fact, he wasn't quite sure where his end destination was, but he didn't care as long as it was far from HYDRA and any other potential threats.

"The Asset!" a voice exclaimed. Bucky instinctively gripped the hilt of his knife and drew it out from the sheath attached to his waist. He turned towards the direction of the voice and saw one man and one woman charging to him. The man swung his fist to punch Bucky, but he was intercepted with a metal left arm. The man winced as he felt the impact of hitting Bucky's prosthetic, and yelled in pain when his side was cut by Bucky's knife. Just as the man collapsed, the woman hit Bucky from behind. Bucky stumbled forward. He managed to stop himself from falling, and as he was turning around, he could hear the sickening sound of flesh being stabbed. At first, he thought he was hit, but then he turned around to see the woman with a shocked expression and the blood soaked blade protruding through her stomach. Blood trickled out of her mouth as the blade was removed from her stomach. The woman collapsed and revealed a shorter person wearing an olive jacket with a large hood.

"Asset?" the person said with a heavily accented voice. Bucky readjusted his grip on the knife and moved toward his enemy. The person didn't do much except for hold the bloody blade up a little higher. Bucky used the opportunity to grab the person by the neck and slam the person up against a brick wall.

"Who are you?" he demanded through gritted teeth.

"Asset, I am not one of HYDRA," the person said while struggling for air.

"I don't believe you."

"I killed one of them. Is that not enough proof?"

As a response, Bucky used his hand to hold the knife up against the person's neck. "Who are you?" he repeated. The person didn't respond. A numb feeling began to invade Bucky's head, but he ignored it. He moved the knife closer, but not even seconds later, he let go of the person. He took a few steps back, and dropped his knife. The numb feeling left Bucky's head, and confusion overwhelmed him. "What happened?" he questioned, more to himself than the person. The person pulled back the hood on the olive jacket, revealing the face of a girl who looked young, mid teens maybe. She dropped her knife and pressed her right foot on top of it.

"My name is Lana," she said. "Those agents were after me." She nodded to the dead woman and the man dying in his own blood.

"Why?"

"Because they want me back. I assume HYDRA also wants you too."

"HYDRA is gone."

"Only parts. There will still be people who will work towards accomplishing HYDRA's goal." Lana took a few steps closer to Bucky. He tensed, and Lana noticed this and stopped. "Why does HYDRA want you?" she asked.

"None of your business, kid," Bucky replied curtly.

"If I tell you why HYDRA wants me, will you tell me why they want you?" Lana asked as she crossed her arms and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

"No."

"You seem rather talkative, Asset."

"My name is Bucky," he corrected with agitation in his tone.

"Okay, Bucky. I have another question for you then."

"I don't care."

"I want to partner with you, Bucky. I can help you."

"How? You're just a kid."

"Do you know why you let me go and dropped your knife?" Lana inquired. Bucky didn't respond; all he could do was look confusedly at her. Lana sighed. "I have, this ability," she began, "I can look into the minds of people, and if I focus hard enough, I can take over and make them do what I want. A man of HYDRA named Baron von Strucker gave me this ability, and that's why what is left of HYDRA is trying to find me." Anger filled Bucky; he was a puppet once again. He stomped over to her, but the numb feeling attacked his head again. He stopped in his tracks, and he then realized there was no way to fight her. "Do you see? I can use my ability to our advantage. We can work together and get by well whilst hiding from HYDRA. Please, Bucky. I promise to never tap into your mind again or control you." Bucky watched as Lana hastily undid the buckles that secured a backpack that Bucky now noticed. She removed the backpack straps from her shoulders and brought the backpack around. Lana unzipped a pocket and brought out a granola bar. She held it out to him. "A peace offering," she stated. Bucky looked at the granola bar. His brain told him to refuse it in case it was poison, but his empty stomach was overriding all logic. He snatched the granola bar and ripped the wrapping away. Lana smirked at Bucky devouring the granola. "Are we partners now?" she asked. Bucky paused mid bite. Once again, his brain was saying it was a bad idea; she could be messing with him. Even then, he's not the most stable person to partner with. Yet, there was an aching feeling in his heart, as if helping this girl was familiar to helping a young man he knew before HYDRA. A sickly young man who needed Bucky's help, but would be too stubborn to accept it sometimes. His heart, like his stomach, ignored logic.

"Do you know your way around New York?" he asked after swallowing his bite.

"Somewhat. I know a shortcut out of here."

"Show me." Bucky saw the small smile of satisfaction spread on Lana's face.

"Follow me, Bucky." Lana bent down and grabbed her knife and holstered it in a holster attached to her thigh. She put her backpack back on and began walking down the alley. Bucky followed behind as he finished the granola bar. A thought appeared in his mind expressing his concerns on what may result from this partnership, but he disregarded it. Bucky wants out, and this girl will help him.

* * *

 **A/N: Hello hello! Welcome to the first chapter of my first** **fan fiction! I'm really excited and nervous about this new prospect, as I've always hesitated when it comes to this. Let me know what you think by dropping a review and maybe a favorite or follow.**

 **-SirFangirl**


	2. Rooftop Run

Lana shifted the straps of her backpack for the third time possibly. She looked behind her to see Bucky still following her with his eyes alert and looking everywhere. He still had his knife gripped in his hand; Lana understood though as she had her knife in her hand. "Where did you get your knife from?" she asked. Bucky snapped out of the trance he was falling into and looked at Lana.

"It's from HYDRA," he said. "What about yours?"

Lana looked down at her bloodied knife. "Lifted it from a pawn shop," she answered casually. Her knife wasn't the first thing she's stolen.

"Did you mind control the owner to give it to you?" Bucky asked with an edge of sarcasm in his tone.

"No. There was too many people around. I'm sure they would be very confused as to why a pawn shop owner gave a girl a knife without her paying for it. Stealing it was easier."

"You steal often?"

"Yes," Lana answered as she approached a fire escape connected to a brick building that looked no different from the other buildings she and Bucky have passed. She stopped, which made Bucky stop behind her. "This is our shortcut; watch your step." She stepped up the fire escape with Bucky following behind. A couple flights of stairs later, and they were on a rooftop showing the New York skyline in the distance. There were other rooftops that were close enough to jump over to.

"What kind of shortcut is this?" Bucky questioned. Lana turned around to see Bucky looking at her with an irritated grimace.

"Relax, Grumpy, we can jump the rooftops. That way, there will be no petty criminals or HYDRA agents seeing us. You're welcome," she replied smugly. To prove her point, Lana started running to the next rooftop. She stepped on the ledge and jumped over to the next rooftop. Lana landed safely with a tuck and roll move, and she stood up to face Bucky, who could barely be seen due to the night sky. "Are you coming?" she asked teasingly. She watched as Bucky came barreling to the edge of the rooftop he was on. He jumped over and tucked and rolled farther than Lana did. As he stood up, Lana gave him a slow applause. "Nice jumping skills, Bucky. We have a lot more rooftops to cross, so let's go while the night is young." Bucky rolled his eyes at Lana dramatics and began running to the next roof. Lana began running as well as trying to get ahead of Bucky. "Don't get too far ahead of me!" she called out.

After what felt like hours of running and jumping across rooftops. Lana and Bucky stopped on the rooftop of a building that was reaching into another neighborhood. Lana sat with her legs stretched out as she drank from a plastic water bottle that was in her backpack. She looked over to see Bucky laying down nearby. He seemed a little out of breath, but not winded like Lana was. She unbuckled her backpack and removed it from her shoulders. She noticed Bucky look over at her as she unzipped the bag and brought out another water bottle and a neatly folded, blue blanket. Lana rolled the water bottle to Bucky and tossed the blanket in between them. "We should sleep the rest of the night off, and then we can get on the streets before sunrise," she stated. "You can use my blanket as a pillow or a blanket," she added with a cheeky grin. Bucky took the water bottle and sat up to drink it, but he didn't grab the blanket. After taking a long drink, he twisted the cap back on the bottle.

"You can keep the blanket," he muttered. Lana nodded and brought the blanket into her lap .

"Okay. Are you going to get some sleep then?" she asked with slight concern. Surely he was tired from all of the running and jumping?

"No, not right now." Lana watched Bucky stare at the water bottle in his hands; she couldn't read his expression because of the night and Bucky's long hair covering his face. "What did you see?" he asked quietly, which surprised Lana.

"What?" she asked.

"When you read my mind, twice, what did you see?"

"Oh," Lana said as she tried to remember the things she saw in Bucky's head. When she gathered those memories, she turned her body around to face Bucky. "I saw it all from your point of view. I saw you falling from a train, and it was followed by you being dragged away by a man in winter clothes and a fur hat. Your arm was half gone as well." She paused briefly when she noticed Bucky's right arm grab his left arm as if he was remembering these things along with her. "Then you were in a room getting the rest of your arm sawed off. It looked painful. But then, you got a metal arm in place of your flesh arm." Bucky squeezed the water bottle with his left arm to the point the cap was coming off. "There was also this middle aged guy who was saying something to you about being the new fist of HYDRA or something," Lana continued.

"Arnim Zola," Bucky commented more to himself than Lana, but Lana heard it.

"Anyways, I remember seeing lots of- violence," she added awkwardly; she wasn't sure how to explain this next part to Bucky. "There were numerous memories of deaths that followed. Deaths caused by-"

"Me. I know," Bucky interrupted with guilt in his voice. He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Yeah," Lana added quietly. "But what I saw next was you fighting on this weird aircraft thing. You were fighting a man in this rather patriotic costume. He seemed to know you; he was trying to get you to not fight him because he didn't want to hurt you. He knew your name, as if he was trying to get you to remember. Then he said something to you about the end of the line or something, and you stopped fighting him. The last thing I saw was you in the river, rescuing that man and dragging him to shore." Lana waited for a response from Bucky, but he didn't say anything. He still was crushing the water bottle. "Bucky?" Lana asked quietly.

"That man's name was Steve," Bucky replied with a tone Lana couldn't recognized. Was it sadness? Recognition?

"Was he your friend?"

"Yeah, I think so," Bucky answered. Lana realized from the uncertainty in his voice, that the lack of memories wasn't entirely because Lana didn't look into Bucky's mind for long.

"What did HYDRA do to you?" she questioned. She expected it to not be good.

"They used me," Bucky answered. Lana could almost understand what that was like.

"They tried to do that to me too, but I escaped."

"No, not the way you think. It's not like you," he snapped. Lana leaned back in shock from the anger in his words. "I was a puppet. A machine with one mission; kill the target. And I did that for fifty years!" He threw the water bottle across the rooftop in his anger. Lana drew back in fear as she watched Bucky clench and unclench his fist. Lana felt ashamed for all of the times she complained about having to be under HYDRA, even if it was for a week, or how Strucker gave Lana her powers that took away everything she had. She felt ashamed of her bitterness because at least she wasn't used like Bucky was. Lana looked down at the blanket in her lap. She quickly unfolded the blanket and stood up. She might get punched for this, but Lana considered this her way of trying to make things better. She quietly approached Bucky and draped the blanket over his shoulders. Lana quickly sat down and wrapped her left arm around Bucky's shoulders in a side hug. She felt Bucky tense up under her arm.

"I'm sorry," Lana whispered. She felt relief that Bucky hadn't punched her yet, but that feeling quickly went away when Bucky roughly pushed her away. It wasn't a punch, but there was still a dull pain in her side. Lana sat up and looked back at Bucky. He still had the blanket over his shoulders, so at least all of Lana's efforts weren't a loss. She sighed. "It wasn't the same as you, but I know what it's like to be mistreated by someone. Granted, it wasn't HYDRA, for the most part."

"And just how were you mistreated?" Bucky muttered. Lana heard this and held back the annoyance rising up in her.

"My mother, she hated me ever since my father died. She blames me for his death even though I couldn't do anything to stop it. Ever since my father died, my mother ignored me. When she did give me her attention, it was only to berate me for causing my father's death. One night, when I was twelve, she got drunk and beat me and said awful things about me. And-" her voice cracked, and she paused to wipe a tear away. She took a deep breath and looked out to the New York skyline and decided she's said enough. "Anyway," she continued, "I know how it feels to be mistreated, Bucky. I just want you to know that your not a puppet or a machine anymore. You're Bucky, my partner in crime," she said with a small smile. She glanced over to see Bucky turning his head to her.

"Partner in crime?" he questioned. Lana turned her head to see Bucky staring at her with a confused look. She chuckled at his confusion.

"Yes. I assumed that we're going to be stuck with each other for a while, so I should call you something. Partner in crime sounded more fun to me. Wouldn't you say the same?" Lana tilted her head. She watched as Bucky's lips managed a small smile.

"Okay, whatever you say, kid."

"I'm not a kid; I'm seventeen," Lana defended.

"Yeah, well I'm ninety-seven." Lana raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"Ninety-seven?" she echoed. Lana moved closer to Bucky and looked at him intently. She pushed back a side of his hair and tucked it behind his ear. Bucky looked at Lana out of the corner of his eye, but Lana didn't heed much attention to it. She poked his scruffy cheek with curiosity. "How? You're so- young," she commented with blatant bewilderment.

"Cryo freezers," Bucky answered as he moved Lana's hand from his face. Lana stared at him with amazement.

"That's rather impressive," she mused.

"I guess." A silence appeared once again as Lana turned to face the skyline again. Bucky sighed. "Thank you," he said quietly.

"For what?" Lana asked, not even bothering to look at Bucky.

"For trying to reach out to me. It's been a while since someone tried to do that to me. Sorry about what you had to endure from your mother." Lana shook her head.

"It's in the past. I'm just glad I'm away from it all." She sat staring at her feet until she felt fabric being thrown over her shoulders. She reached up and felt the blanket on her. Lana looked over to see Bucky giving her that small smile that's becoming familiar to her. She looked down and lightly laughed. "I'm looking forward to the adventures to come, Bucky."

"Me too, Lana."

 **A/N: Chapter Two is here, folks! I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you to everyone who read the first chapter; I really wasn't expecting this many views/visitors. Shout out to WrittenWithLove for dropping the first review on this fic. And another shoutout to I_AM_SiriusLOCKED for the inspiration and responding to my review of her awesome fic "Finding Bucky". And another shoutout to my friends C and R for getting hyped with me about all of the views/visitors. Papa bless all of you. Here's to more chapters in the future!**

 **-SirFangirl**


	3. Down in the Underground

**New York City, New York. May 7, 2014.**

Bucky stared at the skyline being bathed in the sunrise. He tried getting some sleep last night, emphasis on tried, but his unease from encountering the HYDRA agents combined with troublesome flashbacks prevented sleep from happening. Besides, someone has to keep watch over him and Lana.

Speaking of Lana, she was currently curled up under her blanket while using Bucky's jacket that Bucky may or may not have slipped under her head as a pillow. Bucky smirked when he remembered her saying she wouldn't sleep unless he got some sleep in, but fell asleep herself eventually. Then he remembered the slight meltdown he had- well, slight is an understatement- and how Lana tried to comfort him with her blanket, as if that could stop an ex-assassin who's spent- what was it, fifty years?- of living the cycle of get brainwashed, kill, get frozen, repeat. Yeah, a blanket couldn't quite fix it, but he appreciated her effort. He can't remember the last time someone actually tried to make him feel better; then again, he can't remember much before falling off the train. Bucky wonders if Lana can use her powers to try and bring out those lost memories in his head. He'd have to ask when she woke up, if she ever decided to wake up. Either she's a deep sleeper, or she hasn't slept for a while. Nevertheless, she wanted to leave before sunrise, and while it might be a little late for that, they still need to get moving. He edged over to Lana and shook her by the shoulder. "Hey, wake up," he said. Lana jolted out of her sleep, and a noise of surprise escaped her lips. She sat up and looked around with a startled expression. Bucky moved back from her a little to give her some space. Lana's eyes settled on Bucky's face, and relief washed over her face.

"Oh, it's you," she said. She cleared her throat, "Good morning. Did you get any sleep?" Lana inquired. Bucky shook his head to say no, and Lana frowned. "It wasn't because I fell asleep, was it?"

Again, Bucky shook his head, "Couldn't sleep," he answered. He saw Lana nod in understanding as she reached for her backpack and put the blanket back in exchange for a navy blue baseball cap. Lana turned around again and saw Bucky's jacket nearby. Her gaze settled on Bucky's exposed metal arm, which Bucky self-consciously tried to cover with his fleshy arm. He didn't notice Lana moving over to give Bucky his jacket.

"Thanks for letting me use your jacket," she spoke quietly. Bucky took back his jacket and put it on. He hummed something that sounded like a "You're welcome" to her and stood up. Lana stood next to him and placed the baseball cap on her short, black hair. "So, where to next?" she asked.

"Europe," he answered.

"Europe? That's a little far, don't you think?" she questioned sarcastically.

"We'll sneak onto a boat of some kind." Bucky walked to the ledge of the roof to judge the drop. It was a rather high drop, but he wasn't sure if there was a-

"There's a fire escape over here; I'm not going to make you break your ankles," Lana stated whilst adjusting her backpack and buckling the buckles. Bucky followed her to the fire escape, and they stepped down it.

* * *

Bucky and Lana were walking down the sidewalk of a street outside of Hell's Kitchen. According to Lana, they were going to have to go to the underground in order to get to the harbor. He wasn't sure what she meant by "underground", but he assumed it was similar to the underground train that he remembers riding with Steve and another woman with hair nearly the same color as Steve's. He felt accomplished for being able to remember that; maybe he won't need Lana's powers for help after all. "Are we going on the subway?" he asked, pride bubbling in him from remembering. Lana looked back at him.

"Yes, although I thought underground sounded cooler. Why do you ask?"

"Just making sure. I remember going on one with Steve sometime before the I fell from the train," he replied, putting emphasis on _the._ Lana looked back at him with surprise on her face.

"You remembered something new?" Lana's bright green eyes were wide at the thought that Bucky remembered something. He nodded. Lana grinned as she backtracked to get even with Bucky and gave him a side hug. It took Bucky by surprise, and he wasn't quite sure how to respond. "That's awesome!" Lana exclaimed as she let go of Bucky. They continued walking side by side down the sidewalk. "So, what happened when you rode the underground with Steve?" Lana asked.

"Uh, we were going to Manhattan for some reason- no, wait, we were going because I was going to do a boxing match."

"You were a boxer?" Lana asked in surprise.

"I guess so. I also remember Steve being kind of fidgety, saying something about how tough my opponent is and how he's badly injured most of his opponents." Bucky chuckled at the memory of Steve nervously twiddling his thumbs as the train went down the track. "There was this other woman there. She looked older than both of us, and she kinda looked like Steve. She was telling Steve to calm down and that I was going to be fine. I think she was Steve's mom, because I thought I heard Steve call her 'mom'. I can't remember her name." Bucky looked down at his walking feet as he tried to think of her name.

"Did you win the boxing match?" Lana asked. Bucky sort of ignored her; he was too deep in thought. He snapped his fingers in realization; he knew her name.

"Sarah. His mom's name was Sarah." He pointed to Lana. "She asked me the exact same question after the boxing match because she had to visit a friend nearby and didn't watch."

Lana shrugged, "History repeats itself. So, did you win?"

"No, I would've been beaten to a pulp if there wasn't a ref, and Steve."

"What'd he do?"

Bucky laughed at what he was about to say next. "He got into the ring and tried to push the guy off of me. He pissed off pretty much everyone there. When we got back to Sarah, we had to explain why there was this big bruise on Steve's face."

"Was she mad?"

"A little, but more at the guy who beat me and Steve."

"Mm, I would feel the same." They continued down the street in silence. Lana led Bucky to a turn leading to a street with the entrance to the subway system.

"Where exactly in Europe are you wanting to go to?" Lana asked as they walked down the stairs leading to the subway.

"Romania," Bucky answered, eyes scanning the subway station filled with people starting their day by taking the subway train. He and Lana stopped in front of a machine of some kind that Lana was giving money.

"Why Romania?" she asked as she was tapping on the screen of the machine.

"There's answers there, and I know a place where we can hide. Why do you want to know? Do you not like Romania?" Bucky watched the machine spit out two tickets that Lana grabbed.

"I don't have anything against Romania. I was just curious." She walked away from the machine, and Bucky followed behind with his gloved left hand shoved into the pocket of his jacket.

"You from Romania?" Bucky asked. He's been curious as to where Lana is from; her accent definitely sounds like it's from Eastern Europe, but he can't quite pinpoint the country.

"No. Sokovia," Lana replied as she gave Bucky one of the tickets. Sokovia- it sounds familiar to Bucky; he can't remember if he's been there before. He stopped thinking about it when he and Lana approached a turnstile gate, where Lana swiped her ticket and went through the turnstile. Bucky stepped up to where Lana formerly stood and swiped his ticket. He passed through the turnstile and walked alongside Lana. They stopped at a boarding platform filled with various types of people. "We're boarding 4C," Lana informed Bucky. He nodded and went back to looking through the crowd whilst subconsciously pulling down his baseball cap. As he was looking at the ground, his gaze settled on Lana, and he finally realized that she was pretty tall, reaching slightly past his shoulder.

"You're tall," Bucky muttered. Lana noticed this and looked up slightly at him.

"What'd you say?"

"You're tall," Bucky repeated a little louder. He saw Lana sheepishly grin at Bucky's observation.

"Says you, who is basically a giant." At that moment, a sleek, silver train with a sticker saying "4C" on each door approached the boarding platform. The doors slid open, and Lana and Bucky, along with the rest of the crowd, entered the train. After quickly claiming two seats on the slightly disgusting train car, Lana leaned against Bucky's left shoulder. Minutes later, the train took off down the track. "To the harbor, Buck-Buck," she said quietly yet dramatically. Bucky looked down at her with a confused expression.

"Buck-Buck?" he echoed. He watched Lana giggle at his confusion about the nickname. Bucky looked straight ahead and felt the corners of his mouth lift up into a smirk.

* * *

 **A/N: Yo yo yo! Last I checked, I reached the 69 views milestone (even if it wasn't a milestone). Thank you for reading this chapter; I hope you enjoyed. Also, check out my friend The True Gamer's profile if you're interested in a Batman: Arkham Origins fanfic.**

 ***BlibBlabs***

 **-I should probably mention that the sole reason I got into the MCU was because I saw Bucky Barnes in a CATWS crack video. To sum up my thought process when I saw Buck-Buck's face, it was like: "Oh my goodness, he is beautiful! I need to watch Captain America: The Winter Soldier ASAP! But I also need to get invested in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe as well!"**

 **-And now whenever I see Bucky on screen, I'm either internally or externally saying "Buck-Buck!"**

 **-So, of course that nickname had to worm its way into my fic.**

 **-Also, can we appreciate all of the Bucky and Sam scenes in Civil War. I mean, when I saw Civil War with my friends and the "Can you move you seat up?" and the "You couldn't have done that earlier?" scene and their reaction to Steve and Sharon's little moment, I was whispering "Yes! This is beautiful!" Papa bless Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie for pretty much giving their 110%.**

 **-To be fair though, throughout the entire movie I was flipping out in my reclinable theater seat. (AMC Theaters are high quality, yo.)**

 **-Also, I was reading about what has been said about the production and filming of Infinity Wars, and I feel extremely overwhelmed from what I've read. There's not even a trailer yet!**

 **-And another one (sounding like DJ Khaled up in here), when I saw the scene where Bucky was buying plums, I thought he was buying giant blueberries. Oh my. I saw the plums, and I was like, "Those are really big blueberries." Thankfully the internet set me straight.**

 ***BlibBlabs Over***

 **-SirFangirl**


	4. Subways, Boats, and Thermoses of Wine

Lana sat with her knees tucked under her chin as the subway train rolled down the track. She looked up to Bucky, who still had that look on his face that read, "I'm making sure there are no HYDRA guys on this train even though I've looked this train up and down almost twenty times." Lana sighed and tilted her head back, choosing to look at the faded advertisements and rate their tackiness.

"Do you know Romanian?" Bucky asked as Lana was rating an advertisement for some phone company that was probably out of business **.**

"Some," she answered. "I know greetings, goodbyes, how to ask for help or directions, the names of food, and I know a few phrases and words that would probably come up in everyday conversation." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bucky nod. He looked away from her, probably still checking the train for HYDRA agents.

" _Buna dimineata. Ce mai faci?_ " he asked. Lana smirked; he was testing her ability to speak Romanian.

" _Foarte bine. Esti fluent în limba română?_ " she added.

" _Da. Cât timp până când trenul se oprește?_ "

Lana looked at the map of the subway routes and looked for the one leading to the harbor. She counted the number of stops the train has taken in her head. This left her with two stops until they reach the harbor. After solving a quick math problem in her head, Lana deduced the time, thankful for the algebra class she took a while ago, even if she didn't like it at the time. " _Douăzeci și cinci de minute,_ " she replied.

" _Bun. Acest tren pare destul de dezgustător. Sunt toate trenurile de genul asta? De asemenea, vă mulțumesc pentru a ajunge în tomul noaptea trecută. Sunt încă pic preocupat de tine după mine, dar ai ajuns până aici fără a încerca să mă omoare, sau captura mine, așa că vă mulțumesc,_ " Bucky said, that small smile on his face again. Lana frowned, she didn't understand half of what he said.

"Alright, you got me. I could barely understand half of what you said. Looks like I still need to learn Romanian, obviously" she said more to herself with slight disappointment in her voice. She's not going to admit this to Bucky, or anyone really, but Lana hates messing up. Yes, she knows she shouldn't be too hard on herself, but that's easier said than done. She untucked her legs and set her feet on the floor. Lana leaned forward and rested her chin on her fists. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bucky look over at her. Was Lana looking that disappointed or something? She was hoping he didn't notice as she tried to convince him otherwise by tilting her head to stretch her neck and rolling her shoulders in an attempt to look casual.

"You did pretty good. Still have a few things to learn, but as long as you don't get in a deep conversation with anyone, you should be okay," Bucky said quietly. Lana nodded, trying to hold back the embarrassment in her. He knew that she was upset, that's why he said that. It had to be. "Where'd you learn Romanian from?" he asked, snapping Lana out of the pity party happening in her head.

"I was homeschooled, kind of, and I had a lot of time on my hands because of that," she explained, smirking at the memories of her private tutors' shocked faces when she'd have the lesson understood so quickly that sometimes they would have to move to the next lesson meant for the next day. When they didn't and left instead, Lana filled her spare time with learning new languages she wasn't already being taught or finding some new hobby. Bucky nodded. Lana sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, feeling less self-pity in her. "So, what's in Romania?" she asked, hoping Bucky would give an answer better than the answer from last time she'd asked.

"Places that'd help me remember," he answered vaguely. Lana frowned briefly and hummed what sounded like an "Okay" and slouched in her seat. She closed her eyes and thought of how many Romanian words and phrases she knew.

* * *

After leaving the subway station, Lana and Bucky reached the harbor. Lana was leading, as she told Bucky she knew someone who'd get them to Romania, or close to it at the least. Lana looked out at the waters beside her, feeling the breeze on her face. She checked behind her to see Bucky still looking everywhere for any baddies. Lana sighed. It's understandable that Bucky's nervous about a potential HYDRA agent attacking him; then again, it did make him less of a conversationalist in Lana's opinion. She looked ahead to see a boat in her view. Lana slowed her pace to let Bucky catch up to her. "Alright," she began, "You see that white boat with the fading yellow stripe and the rust?" she asked pointing to the boat in question.

"Yeah," Bucky replied.

"Good. Now, the owner of the boat is kind of a hard-ass. So, let me do the talking. Also, don't expect getting extremely close to Romania. We'll definitely get to Europe, but which country is up to whatever route the boat is going." Lana picked up her pace and started rehearsing what she was going to say in her head.

"Alright," Bucky said. They approached the boat, where a few men were loading boxes onto the boat and following orders from a woman with fiery red hair and a glaring scar across her right eye.

"Maria!" Lana called out with sarcasm. The redhead looked at Lana and scowled at her.

"Lana," Maria groaned in her German-accented voice, "I thought I had you off my back. What do you want this time?" she asked.

"I need to get to Europe, preferably as close to Romania as possible," Lana explained.

"Romania?" Maria scoffed, "You should realize that I got caught doing my job in Romania. If the authorities see my boat anywhere near Romania, you can bet your ass they'll sink it."

"Alright, then can you get us to anywhere in Europe?" Lana asked.

"Maybe, but you're going to need a ticket," Maria replied with her hand held out. Lana rolled her eyes as she unsheathed her knife, still bloody from last night. She presented it to Maria.

"I don't know what type it is. I lifted it from a pawn shop; cost of it looks to be close to the hundreds."

Maria grabbed the knife by the hilt and held it up in the early morning sun. The blade, despite the blood, shined a little in the light. "Care to explain the blood?" she asked.

"You have your secrets; I have mine," Lana replied. Maria nodded.

"Fair enough. I'll keep the knife, and you and your friend can come on board." Lana felt relief settle in her. "But, you should know that I'm only letting you on because I think your friend is cute," Maria added, winking at Bucky, whom Lana could see had a very flustered look on his face. Lana nodded, holding back the laughter rising in her. "Follow me," Maria said as she sashayed away, which was her way of showing confidence and authority to Bucky. Lana rolled her eyes at the redhead's display and followed Maria into the boat.

* * *

After Maria left Bucky and Lana in their temporary room, which consisted of a dirty mattress and a few crates and barrels along with a door leading out and a door leading to a closet with a filthy bucket in it, Lana let out a burst of laughter.

"What's so funny?" Bucky asked as he leaned against a barrel.

"Oh, you should've seen your face when Maria said you were cute." Lana continued laughing at Bucky's bemused expression. "Maria was even funnier with her trying to show off in front of you." Lana sat on the lumpy mattress and laughed into her hands. She could see Bucky sheepishly grin. Lana laid back on the mattress and took a few deep breaths to stop her laughing. "I'm going to have to ask where she's stopping at," she mused. She rolled over on her side to face Bucky, "How many languages do you know?" Lana watched as Bucky looked at the floor in thought. He looked up at her, his blue eyes peeking out from under his hat.

"Ten. Fluent in five," he answered. Lana rolled onto her back again.

"Well, let's hope we stop in a country that speaks one of those five languages," she added.

Eventually, the boat finally left the harbor. As the boat made its way across the Atlantic Ocean, Lana had convinced Bucky to get some sleep on the old mattress in the room despite his claims that he wasn't tired, but the dark circles under his eyes said otherwise. She did make him get some rest with the promise of waking him up in case someone tried to attack either of them. Lana occupied herself by either counting the grooves in Bucky's metal arm (his jacket was being used as a pillow once again); trying to balance on one of the barrels or crates (she'd only fallen off once, which earned her a sleepy grumble from Bucky); or sometimes practicing her powers when she heard someone walk by the door (so far, she's seen memories about a psychotic ex, an ill mother, and memories about Maria's- ahem- "off-time" with one of her crew members, something which Lana never wants to see again). This went on for what Lana assumed was a couple of hours before someone knocked on the door as Lana was trying to balance once again on a barrel. She didn't have to bother with waking Bucky up, as he stood up with his knife in hand in a matter of seconds. "Relax, Buck-Buck," Lana said, as her powers let her know who was at the door, "It's just Maria." She jumped off of the barrel with a small thud. "And put that knife away; she might take it from you," she added quietly so that only Bucky would hear. Lana approached the door and opened it to reveal Maria carrying two brown paper bags. She held it out to Lana.

"Dinner," she said. Lana took the bags, her stomach growling slightly when it realized how empty it was.

"Thank you." Lana handed one of the bags to Bucky, who had managed to slip his jacket back on and hide his knife before Lana had opened the door (which Lana was impressed by; he's fast). She looked back to Maria, who was checking out Bucky. Lana cleared her throat, getting Maria's attention along with a scowl from her for Lana interrupting her staring at Bucky. "Where are you planning to stop?" she asked whilst leaning against the doorframe.

"Germany. Hanover, to be exact."

"Alright," Lana answered. She mentally thanked the tutor that vigorously taught her German. "Is it okay if I walk around the boat?"

"Absolutely not," Maria answered in exasperation. "The last time I let that happen, you nearly sunk my ship." Maria narrowed her eyes, and Lana cleared her throat awkwardly. Maria looked over Lana to Bucky, her eyes no longer narrowed and a smirk on her lips. "Your friend over there can walk around if he wants." Lana looked behind her to see Bucky sitting on the mattress, the bag in his hands. He was looking at Maria at the mention of him. He set his mouth into a straight line and nodded as a way of saying thanks before going back to looking at the bag's contents. Lana held back the smirk that was forming from Maria's look of dejection. She straightened up and stepped out of the doorway.

"Alright, thank you for the info, Maria. I'll see you when we dock," she said while closing the door on Maria. She chuckled to herself before sitting on the mattress next to Bucky. "I think someone's getting the special treatment," Lana teased, nudging Bucky with her shoulder.

"I know," Bucky said with his eyes focused on the contents of the bag. Lana opened up her own bag and looked inside.

"A fish sandwich and a bottle of water," she stated out loud. "What about you?" she asked Bucky. Bucky wordlessly pulled out a two plastic containers with green lids and a silver thermos. He set the containers between him and Lana and unscrewed the lid of the thermos. As he was taking a drink from the thermos, Lana opened the containers. She saw a grilled salmon next to a vegetable medley of carrots, green beans, and potatoes along with a slice of chocolate cake in the smaller container. Lana looked up at Bucky, who was taking another swig from the thermos. "What's in the thermos?" she questioned.

"Wine," Bucky answered.

"Damn, you really are getting the special treatment. Red grape or white grape?"

"Don't know," he said as he put the thermos lid back on. He reached into the paper bag with his flesh hand and pulled out a plastic fork and knife and a ripped piece of paper. He set the fork and knife in the container with the cake and looked at the writing on the paper. Bucky smirked in amusement at what the note said and handed it to Lana. She laughed at the message ("All for you, Handsome.") and the lipstick stain next to it.

"Oh, she's really letting herself go," she criticized, tossing the note aside. She grabbed her fish sandwich and took a bite. She noted the lukewarm temperature, but it's better than a granola bar. As she reached for her water bottle, she felt her lukewarm sandwich in her lap be replaced by something else. Lana looked down to see Bucky's meal in her lap.

"You can have it," Bucky said, Lana's fish sandwich in his hands.

"Oh no, if you're going to be that way, we're splitting it." Lana set the bottle down and grabbed the fork and knife. She cut the salmon in half and set the container in between them. "Eat up," she said as she held the fork out to Bucky. He looked at her with surprise in his eyes. Bucky blinked and took the fork after tossing the fish sandwich back into the bag.

"Thank you," he said quietly. Lana heard the awkward way the words were spoken, realizing that those two simple words were like a foreign language to Bucky. Lana smiled, ignoring the pity she felt.

"No problem." She stabbed a potato with the knife and raised it up to her mouth. Lana shoved the potato in her mouth and began chewing. Her tongue burned as she felt the heat from the potato attack her mouth. Lana dropped the knife in the container and grabbed her water bottle. She quickly unscrewed the cap and took a gulp of the water. She could hear Bucky chuckling at Lana's brief panic. When she forced the potato down, Lana looked over to Bucky, "Watch for the potatoes, those things can burn your tongue to a crisp." Bucky shook his head at Lana's exaggeration. He got a carrot on his fork and ate it.

"They got a good cook," he commented before taking a swig from the thermos. Lana picked up her half of the salmon and took a bite from it. She saw Bucky holding out the thermos to her. "Want some?" he asked. Lana swallowed her bite and grabbed the thermos.

"I'm surprised you're letting me have any," she said before taking a swig. Bucky shrugged.

"You're close to eighteen. Is that still the age when you can get alcohol?" he asked.

"In America, I heard it's twenty-one now. In pretty much all of Europe it's eighteen. Was it really eighteen back then?"

"Yeah, after they stopped Prohibition." He chuckled. "I remember the time I got my first beer. Steve was with me. He wasn't old enough yet to have one, but I bought him one while he was waiting for me at the table. He tried to refuse it, but I told him that no one would know and that I wanted him to celebrate my birthday with me."

"And he took it?" Lana asked.

"Yeah, he said he was only going to have one."

"But did it really stay at one?"

"Hell no," Bucky answered with a chuckle, "I don't know how many we had, but we were so drunk we were tripping over ourselves on the way back to Steve's apartment. Lucky for us, his mom had a late shift at the hospital."

Lana laughed at Bucky's story. "Did she ever find out?"

Bucky scrunched his eyebrows together in thought, "I don't know; can't remember that," he answered with a frown. Lana nodded.

"Well, at least you could remember that much." She took the thermos lid and filled it with some wine before handing the thermos to Bucky. Lana held up the lid in a toast, "To the thermos of wine, for helping you remember something new." Bucky smirked as Lana clinked the thermos lid to the thermos and sipped the wine. Lana swished the wine around in her mouth; her eyes widened as she noticed the taste. "No way," she said in surprise.

"What?" Bucky asked.

"She gave you blackberry wine. There's only a few bottles of that on board, and that's reserved for only her." Lana laughed. "You must be something to her, Buck-Buck." She held the lid up again, "Cheers."

"Cheers," Bucky said with the thermos held up.

 **A/N: I have returned with another chapter! Also, I'm over 180 views last I checked, so yay! Thank you everyone who's read my fic; I've got more chapter ideas in my head ready to be written and posted. Reviews are welcome along with favs/follows.**

 ***BlibBlabs***

 **-Autocorrect is a blessing and a curse.**

 **-Also, doing the copy and paste thing to get a new chapter up is extremely hard to do on my phone. It's like if you accidentally tap the text box wrong, you get moved to some other spot, and it is very frustrating.**

 **-Have you ever been really sneezy/had a really itchy and runny nose happen only in the morning? Like some dust fairy just made a home in your nose and then leaves come afternoon? No? Just me? Okay.**

 **-My friend The True Gamer (that's his username on here) told me his favorite thing about the fic was Bucky and Lana "flirting", and I was immediately like, "Whoah, this is not flirting. It is clearly banter! Also, she's seventeen by the time of this story, and he's ninety-seven at the time of this story!" Even with this explanation, my friend will still tell me he ships it. .**

 **-Also, I realized a few days ago that I unintentionally made Bucky and Lana eighty years apart. Happy accidents (or something like that), am I right?**

 **-Also, translations (according to Google Translate, so chances of inaccuracy).**

 **-** _Buna dimineata. Ce mai faci?_ _ **= Good morning. How are you?**_

 **-** _Foarte bine. Esti fluent în limba română?_ _ **= Very good. Are you fluent in Romanian?**_

 _ **-**_ _Da. Cât timp până când trenul se oprește?_ _ **= Yes. How long until the train stops?**_

 _ **-**_ _Douăzeci și cinci de minute._ _ **= Twenty-five minutes.**_

 _ **-**_ _Bun. Acest tren pare destul de dezgustător. Sunt toate trenurile de genul asta? De asemenea, vă mulțumesc pentru a ajunge în tomul noaptea trecută. Sunt încă pic preocupat de tine după mine, dar ai ajuns până aici fără a încerca să mă omoare, sau captura mine, așa că vă mulțumesc._ _ **= Good. This train is disgusting. Are all trains like this? Also, thank you for reaching out to me last night. I'm still worried about you following me, but you've come this far without trying to kill me, or capture me, so thanks for that.**_

 ** _-_** **Okay, I think I got the translation somewhat right. I couldn't really double-check on Google Translate out of fear of getting booted off of the desktop version of FF. I'll change the translations if I got it wrong.**

 ***BlibBlabs Over***

 **-SirFangirl**


	5. Suck It, HYDRA!

**Somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean. May 11, 2014.**

Bucky sat against a crate in his and Lana's room. Lana was currently asleep on the mattress after getting a taste of that blackberry wine. He made a mental note to stop giving Lana that wine, as the last thing she needs is to be slightly tipsy while on a boat rocking back and forth in the aggressive waves.

So far, being on the boat hasn't been that bad for Bucky. He's gotten a pretty good meal (and the wine is pretty good whenever he got it) everyday. The mattress, while still dirty and lumpy, was better than what he used to have to sleep on (well, whenever his mind was kind enough to let him sleep and not bringing back bad memories). And Lana has been good company when she was awake and not slightly drunk. The only real problem is the other people on board. Whenever he went on the upper decks to get some fresh air, he'd always get dirty looks from some of the crew members. He isn't entirely sure why, but he feels it has something to do with Maria. Speaking of Maria, Bucky's noticed her rather flirtatious nature towards him, and Bucky has found it somewhat annoying. He did find out that they were close to reaching Hanover, to his relief; he's not sure how much longer he can endure being on this boat.

Bucky looked around the room until his gaze settled on the Lana's empty sheath resting next to Lana's backpack. He felt bad for sort of being the one who got Lana's knife taken away. A plan began forming in his head. He had nothing to do, and he knew his way around the boat. Bucky slowly got up and left the room without waking Lana.

* * *

The captain's quarters was like a small house on the deck of the ship. Bucky noticed this as he broke into it. He knew that nobody saw him come in, as the crew was down below asleep. The only person who he had to worry about was Maria, who he didn't see. Bucky glanced around the room he was in, which he assumed was like a main room, as there were two entryways in the room. He saw a table with various trinkets on it and walked to it. The moonlight shining through the window was an advantage to him as he silently shifted the trinkets around. His saw a bronze hilt glinting in the moonlight, and he pulled it out of the pile. Bucky saw the blood-soaked blade attached to the hilt and smirked with pride for finding it. His moment of pride ceased when he heard shuffling from one of the entryways. Bucky sheathed Lana's knife and hid it under his jacket in the waistline of his pants. He turned around and quickly but quietly maneuvered to the door. But just as he grabbed the door handle-

"Hey, Sailor," a drunk Maria greeted. Bucky's mind was spewing out a string of curse words from being caught. He wasn't stopping though, and he grabbed the door handle. "Wait a second, Handsome," Maria called out. Bucky felt a tight grip on his right arm followed by the feeling of being spun around. Was she that strong? The door also swung open as Bucky was spun around. Bucky could see Maria standing dangerously close to him. Bucky tried to hide the confusion and slight fear coming over him with a straight face. Was she trying to kill him? Did she know Bucky took the knife? Was she trying to steal it back? He gripped the knife with his left hand in case she was trying to steal it. "It's always nice to have a visitor," Maria said before she did the unexpected.

* * *

When Bucky got back to his room, Lana was awake and sitting up on the mattress. She was downing the contents of a water bottle. Bucky saw Lana look over at him and nod as a way of greeting. He sighed and pulled the sheathed knife out and tossed it on the mattress. "You're welcome," he said before sitting on the mattress. Lana took the water bottle out of her mouth and twisted the cap back on before grabbing the knife. She unsheathed her knife and stared at it in surprise. "Oh, we're screwed if she finds out about this," Lana stated with a chuckle. "How did you get this?"

Bucky shrugged, "I broke into her quarters. She has an entire table of stuff out in the open."

"Well, yeah," Lana said matter-of-factly, "She expects no one to break in unless they want overboard. Then again, she also doesn't expect an ex-HYDRA assassin who can kick ass and take names when needed to be on board her ship." Bucky noticed the addition of _when needed_ in her description of him, as if that was her way of saying he wasn't someone who killed innocent people. He was brought out of his thoughts when he felt Lana slip her arms around Bucky's right arm as a hug. "Thank you for risking your life to get my knife back," she said into his jacket sleeve. Bucky smiled; it feels nice to do something nice- well, if you consider stealing something that was stolen twice before nice- for someone. He didn't seem to notice Lana letting go of his arm and looking at a mysterious mark on his neck partially covered by his jacket's hood and hair. "What's that on your neck?" she asked with an amused grin.

Bucky swallowed nervously, "Nothing," he lied.

"Are you sure? Because," she pulled back the hood of his jacket and his hair, "That mark on your neck is oddly lip shaped and is the exact same color of a lipstick that a captain of a ship has." Bucky tried to rub away the lipstick on his neck with his hand. "Did you happen to run into our feisty German captain while you were grabbing my knife?" Lana asked with blatant curiosity and amusement. Bucky didn't respond and instead looked over to the door in hopes of avoiding the embarrassing question. "You did," Lana exclaimed with surprise. She was trying to hold back her laughter as she said, "Oh, you poor soul. She kissed you?"

"She was drunk," Bucky replied, as if that made things less embarrassing. "She didn't notice I took the knife."

"Okay, I'm glad I can sleep knowing that you didn't kiss the most annoying woman in the world in exchange for my knife. Was she any good?" she asked teasingly with a nudge to Bucky. Again, Bucky didn't respond and rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh, you can't be serious, Bucky."

"Well, how am I supposed to know?" Bucky defended.

"That's true," Lana said. "So, was that your first kiss since 1945?" she asked after a pause.

"Maybe," Bucky replied.

"Okay," Lana said with slight disbelief. Lana giggled, "We've been friends for- what, a week?- and already something as crazy as this happened."

"Friends, huh?"

"Of course, Dumb-Dumb," Lana teased.

"That's," Bucky paused, trying to come up with a word to describe it, "Nice."

"I know. Friends are rather nice to have."

* * *

The waves were gently rocking the boat as Bucky pondered by the window in his and Lana's room. It's been too long since he made a friend. Sure, Steve said they were friends, but they were also friends seventy years ago. He could say it's been too long since he made a new friend. Although, he's not sure why Lana is okay with being his friend. After all he's done and all the things done to him, Bucky's doesn't think he deserves a friend; he's so screwed up in the head that he'd most definitely scare people away, especially if they knew what he's done in the past. Lana doesn't seem to care about that, and it baffles him.

A bright light briefly shone in the window. Bucky looked out the window and saw a large, gray boat close enough that there was a bridge coming from the gray boat to connect the two ships. Bucky had his suspicions about the gray boat, and they were confirmed when he could see the name of the ship in the moonlight: _Maribel del_ _Mar,_ the ship that HYDRA used to set-up in D.C.. Bucky quickly moved to the mattress and shook Lana awake. "We need to leave," he said as he grabbed Lana's backpack.

"What?" Lana mumbled, still half-asleep.

"It's HYDRA. They're on the boat." He handed Lana her backpack, and she quickly slipped it on. "We need a way off the boat. You know of one?" Bucky asked.

"There's a part of the boat that hides a motorboat. The only problem is that we have to get to the deck and behind the captain's quarters."

"You sure about that?"

"Of course, that's where I almost sunk the ship last time I was here," Lana said cockily.

"Alright, let's go." Bucky and Lana left the room and silently moved down the hallway.

* * *

Bucky and Lana hid behind a stack of crates when they reached the deck. Bucky looked over to see Maria and two of her crew members along with three men wearing almost matching uniforms illuminated by the searchlight on the boat. Maria was angrily speaking in German to the man Bucky knew was the captain of the boat. He caught a few words he knew, such as _weapons, late, undercover,_ and _spy._ Lana silently let out a curse.

"What?" Bucky whispered.

"There's been a HYDRA agent on board this whole time. He's been keeping track of Maria to see if she was actually putting off delivering shipments to HYDRA. He knows we're on board." Just as Lana explained this, Bucky could hear the word _asset_ be said. His mind screamed at him to act fast, so he looked to Lana.

"Can you control all of them to not attack us?" he asked.

Lana shook her head, "No, that's like tearing my brain into six different pieces." Bucky sighed in disappointment. "What if we climb across the railing? I got enough upper body strength to do it, and you certainly look capable of doing it."

Bucky nodded, "Okay, we'll take the railing on my side."

"Alright, hang on." Lana closed her eyes.

"What are you-"

"Shush," Lana said with her hand held out to Bucky. Bucky watched as Lana apparently did nothing; his human fingers were twitching against his leg. Finally, Lana opened her eyes. "Okay, let's go." Bucky took the lead and climbed over the railing with the crates hiding him. He gripped the rail closest to the deck and let himself hang from it. Lana did the same, and they climbed across the railing. They started climbing past Maria and the HYDRA agents, who Bucky could hear were discussing his and Lana's location on the boat.

"I told Maria to not tell them where we're heading," Lana whispered when they were away from Maria and the HYDRA agents. "The undercover spy doesn't know where we're going."

"Good." Bucky took a big stretch across the railing. He looked over to see Lana doing the same, but she didn't reach as far as Bucky.

"Don't leave me behind," she quietly quipped when she finally caught up to Bucky.

* * *

Bucky and Lana finally made it to the back of the captain's quarters building. Lana revealed a secret trapdoor that slid open at the press of a button camouflaged into the wall. They dropped into a room that had most of its space taken up by a motorboat big enough to fit two people and a rack of various guns and supplies. "I can drive the boat. We can't take the guns because Maria has trackers on all of them," Lana explained as she grabbed foodstuffs and other supplies from the rack. She stuffed them into her backpack and tossed the backpack into the boat. "We're pushing the boat out once I get the door open. Take the ties off of it." Bucky nodded and cut the straps holding down the motorboat. He felt water flooding into the room as he stood up and saw the door open. He and Lana got beside the motorboat and pushed it. They hopped into the seats simultaneously before the boat hit the waters. Bucky looked behind him to see the door close automatically now that the motorboat left. He was lurched forward as Lana started the motorboat and sped off. The ships were getting more and more distant as Lana continued to speed the motorboat up. Then, Bucky could see something coming from the _Maribel del Mar._ He reached over and grabbed the steering wheel of the boat and turned the wheel to the right. The boat narrowly dodged an explosion that happened behind them. The boat bounced from the waves caused by the explosion. "What the hell was that?" Lana yelled over the sound of the motor.

"I don't know. Can you make this boat go any faster?"

"It's going as fast as it can go, Bucky." Lana quickly swerved the boat around a rock sticking out of the water which made Bucky be pressed against the the side of the boat. When he centered himself in his seat, Bucky looked over his shoulder to see two wave riders giving chase. Lana looked in the rear view mirror and saw the wave riders as well. She started maneuvering the boat left to right to throw them off. Bucky could see the shore on each side of them, indicating they were on a river. "Bucky," Lana called, "Grab my bag." Bucky reached behind him and grabbed Lana's bag. "Alright, I'm moving this closer to shore while they're still this far behind us. On my call, we jump." Lana turned the wheel to the left and moved it to the shoreline. Bucky climbed over the seat to the back seat. He slipped Lana's bag on his bag and perched himself on the edge of the boat. The boat was starting to tread shallower waters. Bucky didn't bother to wait for Lana's call as he reached his left arm over to grab Lana by the waist. He lifted her out of the seat and jumped off of the boat. He and Lana landed on the sandy shoreline as the motorboat crashed onto a plethora of rocks and exploded a safe distance from them. Bucky and Lana pushed themselves to their feet and started running into the safety of the trees. They got into the tree line and ran in the direction of the distant city lights.

* * *

The first thing of civilization Bucky and Lana saw was a used car lot that was closed. They climbed over the fence surrounding the lot and looked for a vehicle to steal. Bucky saw a rusted, green truck and ran over to it with Lana following behind. He was extremely thankful that the door was unlocked as he got in the passenger side of the truck and slid across the seat to the steering wheel. Lana got in as well and closed the door. "Uh, Bucky," she said, nudging Bucky's arm.

"Hang on." Bucky popped off the plastic cover of the steering column and began hot-wiring the truck. Soon enough, the engine kicked on, and Bucky used his metal arm to unlock the steering wheel. When the wheel unlocked, Bucky put the truck into gear and slammed his foot on the accelerator. He steered away in time before the HYDRA agents from the boat and a few more climbed over the fence. The truck barreled towards the main gate as the HYDRA agents fired bullets at the truck. Lana kept her head down as Bucky swerved left and right to mess up the HYDRA agents' aim. The truck ripped through the gate, but the HYDRA agents followed the truck. Bucky briefly saw Lana grab her backpack and open up the very front pocket.

"I know I said the guns have trackers," she began. She pulled out two hand grenades with a devilish grin, "But the hand grenades don't."

"You were carrying hand grenades in your backpack?" Bucky asked in annoyance as Lana pulled the pin off of one of the grenades.

"You bet." Lana rolled down the window on her side and stuck her upper half out of it. Bucky couldn't see her throw it, but he saw the HYDRA agents run back and the explosion happen in the rearview mirror. She slipped back in and pulled the pin off of the last hand grenade before getting out the window again and throwing the last one. "Suck it, HYDRA!" she yelled before getting back into her seat. Bucky smirked at her remark and let the truck slow down a little as it stormed down the dirt road.

* * *

When Bucky was sure there were no more HYDRA agents following them, he pulled the truck into the parking lot of a convenience store that was closed for the night. His heart was thundering in his chest from the rush of adrenaline he got from the HYDRA chase. He looked over to see Lana once again reach into her backpack. "Got more hand grenades?" he asked jokingly.

"Nope," Lana replied with a shaky tone. She pulled out her blanket, wadded it up, and buried her face in it. Her screams were muffled by the fabric as Lana slouched in the seat. She pulled the blanket away from her face, "That was the tensest moment of my seventeen years of living," she said breathlessly. "My heart feels like it's going to explode. _I_ feel like I'm just going to blow up. Right here, just-" she made an explosion noise and gesture with her hands. She turned to face Bucky and gripped his arm. "Did you see the explosions I made with those hand grenades?" she asked quickly that Bucky could barely understand her. He nodded. "That. Was. _Awesome,_ " she stated with a mixture of nervousness and excitement shining in her eyes. Lana let go of Bucky's arm and sat back in the seat. Bucky slouched in the seat and closed his eyes.

"We need to get a map," he thought out loud. He heard the opening and closing of the passenger door. When he opened his eyes, Bucky saw Lana sneaking around to the back of the convenience store. "She's crazy," he said.

* * *

A couple minutes later, Lana came back to the truck and climbed in with a map in hand and two candy bars and two bottles of soda. "I may've over-indulged," she said. "Also, we're in Hanover. I saw a little stand in the store selling postcards for here." She handed Bucky one of the soda bottles and dropped one of the candy bars next to him. "You know a thing or two about reading maps?" she asked as she unfolded the map.

"A little."

"Alright, let's figure out our route to Romania then."

* * *

 **A/N: Aw snap! Nothing like a good 'ole chase sequence and an not-so-subtle reference to CA:TWS. This chapter was really fun to write, and I hope you had fun reading it. If so, drop a review and maybe a follow and/or fav? Eh, eh?**

 ***BlibBlabs***

 **-The "Swagger" playlist on Spotify is pretty ace for writing this story sometimes.**

 **-I hate it when I find errors on previous chapters because it makes me cringe that someone saw that and was probably like, "Ha, this scrublord can't write at all!"**

 **-Also, my computer tried to autocorrect scrublord to scrubland.**

 **-Fun fact: the** ** _Maribel del Mar_** **is an actual HYDRA cargo boat that was featured in** ** _Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D._** **(Spoilers)** **It was taken by SHIELD at the end of the episode it was featured in, which happened months after CA:TWS and this fanfic.**

 **-I've kinda come up with this head cannon (is that the right term?) that in CA:TWS they used the ship to bring Buck-Buck over to America, but we didn't see that happen. So that was why Bucky knew HYDRA was here.**

 **-I learned yesterday that Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch) is the younger sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. How I didn't realize that earlier is beyond me.**

 **-Also, I keep having this recurring daydream where I'm interviewing Sebastian Stan and Anthony Mackie on this talk show that I'd host on YouTube. I'd call it, "The YouTube Talk Show". Yeah, I'm very imaginative.**

 **-To be honest though, they sound like some fun lads to interview.**

 ***BlibBlabs Over***

 **-SirFangirl**


	6. A Short Road Trip

**Prague, Czech Republic. May 12, 2014.**

Lana was rummaging through her backpack in search of something. So far, Bucky and she made it through Germany and were going down the streets of Prague. It was still dark out, but the streetlights provided enough lighting for her to look through the bag. "Come on," she muttered in frustration as she still couldn't find what she was looking for.

"What?" Bucky asked, his right arm resting on the back of the seat.

"Nothing, I'm just looking for something in my bag. Really hoping I didn't leave it on- aha!" Lana pulled out a small, blue-and-silver, box-shaped object and a black case. "I knew I didn't leave you two behind," she said to the object and case.

"What's that?" she heard Bucky ask.

"This," she held up the blue-and-silver object, "Is a Walkman. It can play music from cassette tapes, and you listen to it through headphones." She reached into her backpack again and pulled out an old-fashioned pair of headphones. "The black case has cassette tapes in it with songs that are my personal favorites."

"Where'd you get it from?"

"I paid some guy in New York who runs a music shop to help me get the cassette tapes. The Walkman, that I got from a friend I made while I was with HYDRA."

"You made friends with a HYDRA agent?"

"Oh, no, he wasn't a HYDRA agent," Lana clarified. "No, he was like me."

"You mean he has powers like you?" Bucky asked. Lana shook her head.

"No, he would have powers if he was alive." Lana bit the inside of her cheek as the memories of her friend came back.

"Sorry," Bucky said. Lana wonders if he feels slightly responsible since he was HYDRA's lapdog for a long time. If so, he really shouldn't; it's not his fault.

"It's fine. I'm sure he's in a place where he can listen to all the music in the universe and probably talk to all of his favorite dead musicians," she said a slight chuckle. "He told me if I ever made it through the experiments and he didn't, that I should try and get his prized Walkman back and keep it." She smiled briefly, "He was probably the best music expert in the whole world. If you gave him a song name, he could say the lyrics backwards and forwards and tell you all of these facts that you probably wouldn't have known about." She opened up the black case and pulled out one of the cassettes with a word in the Serbian language written on it. "My first cassette tape was made for him." She held up the cassette tape so that Bucky could see. He looked over at it.

"What does it say?" he asked while turning his attention to the road again.

" _Alexander_ in Serbian." Lana felt across the dashboard for the tape deck. She slid the tape in and pressed play. She lowered the volume in case Bucky had anything he wanted to say.

"So, were you the only one that survived?" Bucky questioned.

"No, in fact, most of HYDRA believes I'm dead, because I faked dying from an experiment and made my escape. There were only two others that survived." She turned in her seat to face Bucky. "Since we're apparently playing twenty questions, what's in Romania that's going to help you remember?"

"Not much, but there's a safe house in Bucharest we can lay low in." Lana nodded. She was confused why Bucky would want to go to a country that didn't have much information about his past.

"Why do you want to go there then if there's not much you can find out about yourself?" She didn't need to use her powers to notice that Bucky was hiding something; his lack of response and the way he moved his right arm back to the steering wheel said so. But, what was he hiding? "You don't want to look for answers?" she asked.

"I thought you said you weren't going to read my mind anymore," Bucky replied with an edge to his tone.

"I didn't. You just told me your answer." The music softly playing slightly eased the tension between them.

"Looking for answers is only going to bring trouble," Bucky explained.

"But, don't you want to remember?"

"I'll try and remember it on my own. Actually, can you use your powers to help me remember?"

"No, I can't. All I can do is see what you remember and what you're thinking and mind control. I didn't make it through all of the experiments, so I couldn't find out what I was capable of. Sorry." Lana looked down at her Walkman and bit her bottom lip. She wished this feeling of uselessness would go away. Thoughts appeared in her head scolding her for not sticking it out longer with Strucker's experiments, but there were also thoughts telling her that if she did stick it out, then she would've been one of HYDRA's attack dogs, just like Bucky. And she wouldn't want that knowing what HYDRA's done to ruin everything in her life.

"It's okay," Bucky said quietly, snapping Lana out of her thoughts.

"Can I ask you something?" Lana asked.

"Go ahead."

"When I read your mind that one time, I noticed this thought running in your head. It was about that HYDRA guy you attacked, and you felt- disappointed, maybe- in yourself for hurting him. Why? He was a bad guy. Didn't he deserve it?" Lana noticed Bucky gripping the steering wheel a little tighter and the stoic look on his face.

"I just want to be done with hurting people," he answered with an uncomfortable swallow. "The first thing I did after I pulled Steve from the river was attack the people who kept me in D.C."

Lana shrugged, "It's understandable."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is. Anyone who was abused by HYDRA would want to do the same thing if they had the chance."

"I know, but I still did it." Lana turned to face the front window of the truck. She didn't quite know what to say to that without feeling like a hypocrite.

"Yeah. But remember you still have good in you, Bucky."

"I don't."

"You've been letting me follow you. Letting me watch your back while you would watch mine. What kind of person with no good in him would do that?" Lana also wanted to mention how she admired that he doesn't want to kill or hurt those who've made him do those awful things, but he'd probably ask why. And Lana doesn't want to say why. She slid across the seat and rested her head on Bucky's shoulder as an alternative to a hug.

"What are you doing?" he asked with confusion.

"Consider it my alternative to a hug." She slid back to her spot in the seat. "Good people deserve hugs, or something similar to hugs." Bucky didn't react to it; he just continued staring down the road. Lana looked out the window on her side of the truck until she felt an arm circle her shoulders and slide her across the seat. She saw Bucky still staring straight ahead, but his arm was wrapped around her in a side hug. Lana frowned; he thought she was a good person, just like she thought of him. She wanted to say something about this to him, but then they'd be having the same conversation with the roles reversed. Instead, she let herself be wrapped in Bucky's arm and didn't say a thing about it.

* * *

Lana opened her eyes to see the truck was on a highway. The sun was rising, casting the world around her in an orange glow. She heard music still playing, but the song wasn't one that's on the Alexander tape. She looked down to see the tape resting between her and Bucky. "Morning," she heard Bucky say.

"Morning. Did you put a new tape in?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied. "You wrote the name of it in Serbian, so I don't know which one it is."

"Okay. Guessing Serbian isn't one of your languages?"

"I only know a little of it. Is that Sokovia's main language?"

"One of them, along with English." Lana stretched her back before grabbing her soda bottle and taking a swig from what was left of the soda. "Where are we at?" she asked.

"Couple miles outside of Bratislava," Bucky answered. Lana nodded her head and stared at the road in front of her. "Why's this guy singing about using love?"

Lana blinked and turned to face Bucky. "What?" She listened to the song playing and realized what Bucky was trying to ask. "Oh, he's singing about inviting a girl over while his girlfriend is out, and he's saying he wants this girl's love because he's lonely and he loves her more than his girlfriend." Bucky's eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.

"That's really weird." Lana chuckled at his confusion.

"Oh, there's a lot of things weirder than that, Bucky." She reached into her backpack and grabbed one of her remaining granola bars for her breakfast. "So, what was music like back in the early twentieth century?" she asked with her mouth half-full.

"I can't remember; I do remember dancing a lot." Bucky smirked.

"New memory?" Lana asked with interest.

"Yeah. I went to some fair or something with Steve and these two girls."

"Double date perhaps?" Lana turned in her seat and rested her chin on her knee.

"Yeah, I think so. But Steve left to try and enlist for the fifth time probably."

"He just left the date?"

"His date wasn't that interested in him anyways. But I remember taking the girls dancing after Steve left to enlist."

"So, you're basically saying you went on a date with two girls at the same time?" Lana laughed briefly. "Were you a good dancer?"

"They said I was." Bucky shook his head. "I can't remember their names."

"Mm, they probably don't remember yours."

"They're probably dead now." Lana chuckled at the darkness of that comment. She reached over and turned the volume up.

"Ooh, this song is good." She sat back and tapped her hands on her legs to the beat as the highway moved by.

* * *

Lana and Bucky stopped at a gas station before Lana's bladder had the chance of exploding. After leaving the restroom, Lana noticed something about the news report showing on the dusty, muted television. She didn't need to understand the Slovak in the headline to know that the used car lot in Hanover was being talked about. The scene of the explosions Lana had caused was shown to be taped off and having investigators around it. The next thing shown was a reporter interviewing a man Lana presumed was the owner. But the next thing Lana saw was slightly concerning; a picture of the rusted green truck was seen. "Great," Lana muttered. She looked over at the cashier. He was asleep and looked like he wouldn't notice a few things missing. Lana noticed the lack of a security camera and went to look for matches.

"Well, we need to ditch the truck," Lana said as she slid into the truck. She held up a box of matches and some newspapers. Bucky looked at the items with confusion.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because we made the news. They showed a picture of the truck; and it doesn't take a genius to know that the authorities are looking for it in hopes of finding who caused the explosions. So, we gotta burn it so they don't find any DNA traces." Bucky blinked as if he was trying to process all of this information.

"Okay. Where are we burning it?"

"Oh, I'm sure there's a field nearby."

* * *

A few minutes later, Bucky parked the truck in an empty field, and Lana set fire to the inside of the truck after gathering everything from inside. "Well, we had a good run- or, drive really- with that truck. Come on, Buck-Buck." Lana walked off with Bucky following behind.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm back! Yeah, I really took my time with this chapter. But hey, it's like a fine wine; ya gotta age it to perfection! Or at least, something like that. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! If so, drop a fav or follow and a review, because reviews are nice!**

 ***BlibBlabs***

 **-RIP to the green truck.**

 **-I finally found the line break things! You have no idea how much I was getting annoyed that I couldn't include proper story breaks in my previous chapters.**

 **-And to candycrum (who I appreciate for leaving these reviews lately): I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't realize that thing about Elizabeth Olson earlier.**

 **-I just got a Winter Soldier POP bobblehead figure, and it's so adorable! Ah, I love it!**

 **-Also, there needs to be more Winter Soldier merchandise. Just putting that out there.**

 **-The song that Bucky and Lana were talking about was "Your Love" by the Outfield.**

 **-Also, not-so-subtle Guardians of the Galaxy reference.**

 **-I also made a reference to the Civil War Prequel Infinite Comic, but I'll let you look for that one.**

 ***BlibBlabs Over***

 **-SirFangirl**


	7. Colors and a Severe Lack of Sleep

**Bratislava, Slovenia. May 13, 2014**

Bucky and Lana were forced to backtrack to Bratislava in hopes of finding other modes of transport after abandoning the truck. He thought of all of the Slovene words and phrases he knew as he waited for Lana to exchange her US dollars for euros. "What do we need the money for?" he asked.

"It'll help us get somewhere," Lana replied as she grabbed the currency from the ATM. "I know a guy who can help us out."

"Does he also work with HYDRA?" Bucky asked sarcastically.

"No, because HYDRA doesn't have any use for what this guy does," Lana replied. "Don't worry. He won't try to flirt with you or attack you, if that's what you're concerned about, unless you mess with his stuff, then he'll kick your ass to Mars." Bucky nodded and flexed his fingers in the pockets of his jacket. His eyes looked throughout the crowd, an old habit that will probably never die, for anyone suspicious. The street they were on was busy with people going here and there. At first, he didn't see anyone suspicious, but then he saw a man dressed in black pants and a blue shirt constantly looking behind him. As Bucky looked closer, he noticed the black earpiece and cellphone the man had along with the tattoo on the back of his neck peaking out from under the collar of the blue shirt. The tattoo was- pink? Is that even possible? Bucky disregarded the thought and looked at what little of the design he could see. There were broad, wavy lines poking out from the collar, but they look like tentacles if you ask Bucky. Holding back the panic in him, he leaned his head down to Lana.

"The black-haired man in the blue shirt with the pink tattoo," he said quietly, "What is he doing?" He straightened up and looked ahead to the man. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lana looking through the crowd.

"Him?" she asked. Lana chuckled, "You got a good eye, Buck-Buck, that's who I'm looking for." Lana moved through the crowd quickly; Bucky followed behind her. His panic eased as he was sure that Lana wouldn't lead him directly to a HYDRA agent, but he still wasn't sure what this guy was up to, or what Lana was up to. He saw Lana jog closer to the man and say something about the weather to him in Slovene. Bucky caught up to Lana as the man turned around to face Lana. He looked at Lana, then at Bucky, then back to Lana. He nodded and walked into an alleyway nearby. "Let's go," Lana said as she grabbed Bucky's right wrist and led Bucky into the alleyway.

* * *

Bucky and Lana found the man at an ordinary-looking door waiting for them. The man knocked on the door in a specific way and stepped back. Not long after, the door slid open, ruining the ordinariness of the door. Bucky and Lana followed the man down a staircase lit up by pink and blue fluorescent lights. Bucky glanced at the graffiti on the walls while Lana still had a grip on his wrist. The art was distracting enough that Bucky nearly ran into Lana when they reached the end of the staircase. He saw the handprint scanner next to the door. The man pressed his hand to the scanner. It flashed green, and the door could be heard unlocking. The man stepped aside in the small space and gestured to the door. Lana gave him her thanks in Slovene and opened the door. Bucky and Lana walked into a well-sized room lit with the same pink and blue lights in the staircase. A few shelves with different items on them and an oak-wood desk filled some of the space of the room, but the man in the bright yellow tench coat who was talking into the phone stood out the most. He didn't notice Bucky and Lana as his back was facing them. He spoke in Slovene about an early arrival or something along those lines. The yellow-wearing man turned around and saw Bucky and Lana waiting for him. His eyes lit up as he said something into the phone and hung up. As he stepped out from behind the desk with outstretched arms, Bucky couldn't help but think of how the man looked like he was a walking rainbow. Aside from the trench coat, the man had red pants, a navy blue shirt, white shoes with paint stains on them, and his hair was dark blue with pink tips.

"Lana, my favorite customer!" the man said with enthusiasm. Bucky saw the smirk on Lana's face as the man wrapped his arms around Lana in a hug. Bucky tensed, ready to strike if the man did anything. The man let go of Lana and stepped back; Bucky relaxed slightly.

"Dmitry, how are you?" Lana asked. Bucky couldn't help but feel extremely confused about what has happened in the past couple of minutes. Dmitry smiled and waved his hand.

"Oh, same old, same old," he replied with a thick accent. Dmitry looked over to Bucky, and Bucky wasn't sure if he was supposed to be ready to attack or feel really uncomfortable. "Who's he?" Dmitry asked Lana.

"My partner-in-crime, sort of. We need your help in getting us a vehicle." Dmitry seemed to ignore the last thing Lana said and walked over to Bucky. Dmitry circled Bucky with a critical stare. He stopped in front of Bucky and looked to Lana.

"Is he always this drab?" he asked. Bucky rolled his eyes; this guy can't be serious.

"He's not drab, Dmitry. You're just too colorful for your own good."

"Ah, there's no such thing as what you just said." Dmitry turned his head back to Bucky and looked up at him, "Now, your name?" Bucky didn't answer out of confusion. "Well?" Dmitry waved his hands as if that would get him an answer.

"His name is Bucky," Lana answered for Bucky. She stepped in between Dmitry and Bucky. ""Now, can you get us a vehicle of some kind?" Dmitry turned his attention to Lana.

"A vehicle? Of course, but I am a fair man, so-" he held his hand out to Lana.

"Way ahead of you, Dmitry." Bucky watched as Lana pulled the money out of her jacket pocket and pressed it into Dmitry's hand. "I believe that's the correct amount." Dmitry thumbed through the euro bills with a content smile.

"You never disappoint, Lana," he looked up from the money, "Now, you and your friend need a vehicle. You're lucky I just got one of my vehicles back from a client. Follow me." Dmitry walked around the desk and reached under it. A secret panel in the wall slid away. Dmitry walked through the entryway with Lana and a hesitant Bucky behind him.

* * *

As the three walked through the dimly-lit hallway, Bucky was quick to wedge himself between Dmitry and Lana after Dmitry did the same to Bucky and her. Dmitry looked at him with amusement and chuckled. "If only I could remember how many times I've met people like you," he commented with a shake of his head. "You're probably wondering what I do here." Bucky didn't respond and looked over to Lana, who gave him a shrug. "I collect things of all kinds and allow people to borrow them for a price. Of course, what I do is mostly illegal because half of my collection I've had to smuggle, so it's rather hush-hush. My business is called the Rose Club." He pulled back the left sleeve of his coat and held up his wrist. Bucky looked and saw the pink rose tattoo. It clicked in his head that the man from earlier must have had the same tattoo on him, with the lines actually being part of the rose flower. "Because no one would suspect my business to have the name of what sounds like the name of a country club," he explained with a wink. "I'm also an occasional artist, hence my love of color." Dmitry leaned forward to look past Bucky and at Lana. "So, how'd you get back to here?" he asked.

"Maria," Lana answered with a mischievous grin. Dmitry made a noise that sounded of repulsion. Bucky looked at him in bemusement. Dmitry noticed this as he began to explain, "My ex-girlfriend. I hope you didn't get the chance of meeting her."

"I did," Bucky said quietly.

"You do talk!" Dmitry exclaimed. His expression change to one of pity, "You poor soul. Just be glad you got out while you could." He leaned forward again, "Is she in the area?" he asked Lana with trepidation in his tone.

"No, she's in Germany as far as I know. We had to steal a truck in Germany to get to here."

"Good. What happened to the truck you stole?"

"Had to get rid of it." Dmitry straightened up and nodded. They approached a short staircase leading up to a door. Dmitry went up to the door and pulled a set of keys out from the inside of his coat. Bucky stepped up the staircase after Dmitry opened the door. He blinked at the sudden increase in brightness, and he realized they were outside. He saw the fenced off area surrounded by the windowless walls of buildings and the few cars resting in the fenced off area. Dmitry walked to a small, dark green car nearby.

"A 1968 Volkswagen Beetle," Dmitry stated as he placed his hand on the trunk of the car. Lana approached the car and looked in the window on the passenger side.

"Looks good. Where do we need to return it?"

"Do you have a map?" Dmitry questioned. Lana removed her backpack and unzipped the pocket holding the map and pulled the map out. Dmitry grabbed it from her hands and pulled a pen out of his coat, making Bucky wonder just what else this guy had. Bucky walked behind Lana and looked over Lana's shoulder to see Dmitry marking a city in Hungary, Austria, and Ukraine. "No more than three days." Bucky moved to Lana's side as Lana grabbed the map and folded it up.

"Thank you, Dmitry." Lana began to walk past Dmitry, but she was stopped by Dmitry's arm. Bucky took his hands out of his pockets and curled them into fists.

"Relax, Bucky. I'm not going to hurt her." Dmitry looked at Lana. "Can we talk before you go?" he asked.

"Sure," Lana answered. She looked back to Bucky, "You mind going in the car? It should be unlocked." Bucky unclenched his fists and nodded before getting into the passenger side of the Beetle. He looked into the driver's seat and saw the keys to the car. He sat back in the seat and was forced to slouch a little due to the small confines of the car. Bucky will never know why Dmitry thought a car this small could fit a guy as tall as him. He looked at the rear view mirror to see Lana and Dmitry still talking. He saw Lana's somber expression and her arms crossed over her chest. His concern was raised when Dmitry grabbed Lana's upper arms. Lana looked up at Dmitry. Bucky's concern was subsided when he noticed Lana's expression change to a happier one. He sighed and pulled the gloves off of his hands. Bucky flexed his fingers, but could only feel anything from his human hand. He chose to cross his arms and lean his head back slightly. The need for sleep was becoming apparent to Bucky as he felt like the leather seat would envelope him and never let him go, but he can't sleep while Lana is still talking to Dmitry. Then again, the seat is starting to feel too comfortable for Bucky's own good. He took one more look in the rear view mirror and saw Lana still talking with Dmitry. Things looked fine, so Bucky slouched in the seat and closed his eyes. He felt his body shutting down and letting sleep take control.

солдат?

Bucky gasped and opened his eyes. He sat up straight and bumped the top of his head on the roof of the car. He muttered a curse in Russian as Lana got into the car. "Happy to see you too," she quipped.

"Not you. I hit my head," Bucky explained. "Did he really have to give us a car this small?"

"He's not very observant." Bucky nodded in agreement as he slouched in the seat again and stared ahead at the fence. "You okay? You look out of it."

"I'm fine," Bucky mumbled.

"Yeah, sure," Lana said in disbelief as she put the key in the ignition. "Try and get some sleep, why don't you."

"I don't need it," Bucky lied as he tried to suppress a yawn. "D'you know how to drive?" he asked as Lana tossed her bag into the backseat.

"Yes, I would've said otherwise if I couldn't." Bucky watched as Lana drove the car out of the lot and through a secret entrance that just opened up.

"How many secret doors does this guy have?" he asked lethargically.

"Way too many, Sleepyhead," Lana answered with a grin. The scenery changed as the car entered the secret entrance that led to a tunnel. Bucky stared at the seemingly endless tunnel ahead with tired eyes. He leaned his head against the window and willed himself to stay awake. "You sure you don't need sleep?" he heard Lana ask.

"Yes, I'm fine," Bucky answered curtly.

"You look like you're going to pass out in the blink of an eye."

"I don't want to sleep," Bucky snapped. He sighed and covered his face with his right hand when he realized he practically gave Lana the reason why he wasn't sleeping.

"How come?"

"Nightmares," he muttered.

"Oh. Have they happened before?"

"A couple of times." Bucky stared at the tunnel's yellow lights that were blurring together as the car moved down the tunnel.

"You want to talk about it?"

"No." He heard Lana sigh in the seat next to him.

"Fair enough. Just don't make yourself sick from losing sleep." Bucky hummed in understanding. "Hey, can you grab my bag?" Bucky reached to the backseat where Lana's bag sat. He grabbed it and set it in his lap. "Okay, grab my case of cassette tapes. It's in the front pocket." Bucky did so and tossed Lana's bag to the backseat.

"Which cassette?" he asked while looking through the small plastic rectangles. The yellow lighting was barely bright enough for Bucky to see all of the tapes were labeled in Serbian.

"The second-to-last one." Bucky grabbed the cassette and pushed it into the cassette player and managed to press play in the dim lighting. He went back to looking out of the window as the music filled the car.

"What's a northern downpour?" Bucky asked. He looked over to Lana, who shrugged in response.

"I think it's the singer's tears."

"That's dramatic."

"Mm, you could say that." Bucky leaned his head back and listened to the music until sleep took hold on him once more.

* * *

 **A/N: I have returned with a new chapter! Last I checked, this fic is close to seven hundred views. Seven hundred! Gah! Thank you everyone who's taken time to read this; let's get this to one thousand, yeah? Also, feel free to leave a review, because those are neat (so are favs/follows, but you know).**

 ***BlibBlabs***

 **-The references are strong in this chapter. Some of them I think are easy to point out (bonus points if you find the unintentional reference to _The Martian)._**

 **-The little piece of Russian in this chapter translates to _soldier_. **

**-Have you seen those little vine compilations on YouTube. The ones that focus on a certain theme and they have vines with fancy editing tricks and songs that you desperately want to know the names of. Yeah, those things are like really neat** **mixtapes if you don't feel compelled to look at the screen.**

 **-The attention to colors may or may not have came about through me listening to "Colors" by Halsey.**

 **-I've been making an edit about Team Cap (even though _Civil War_ was a month ago) set to "Mustang Kids" by Zella Day (a song I recommend). It's going, but I only have iMovie, so it's not like those extremely good edits. Blah! **

**-As of the week I posted this, I have been accidentally confusing one day of the week for another day of the week (I thought Wednesday was Friday, and Thursday was Wednesday). My brain is losing all concept of time.**

 **-I just need to say this, but if you search "Sebastian Stan in Picnic" on YouTube, click the first vid of it you see. You will not be disappointed by the video or the comments on the video.**

 **-I wonder if some actors/writers/directors read fan fiction sometimes. If so, have mercy on them. (But low-key if anyone who worked on any MCU movie is reading this, bless up).**

 **-I'm a lame person. (Jk lol).**

 ***BlibBlabs Over***

 **-SirFangirl**


	8. And We Mean to Go On and On and On!

**Kecskemét, Hungary. May 13, 2014.**

Lana silently tapped her index fingers on the steering wheel as a song from her mixtape played quietly. She glanced over at Bucky sleeping in the passenger seat before turning her attention back to the road. The sun was casting an orange glow over the road in front of Lana. She relaxed in her seat a little seeing as there weren't any cars sharing the road with her. Her mind flashed back to her conversation with Dmitry before she left Bratislava.

* * *

 _"_ _Why are you back in Europe?" he'd asked._

 _"_ _I'm helping Bucky. He needed to get somewhere," Lana answered, not wanting to make the mistake of telling where they were going._

 _"_ _You're not going back to Sokovia, are you?"_

 _"_ _What, no, we're not going there."_

 _"_ _Good. I know that Strucker is still there. Even then, I'm not sure how the public would react if they saw-"_

 _"_ _Have you been working with HYDRA?" she interrupted. She didn't want Dmitry to talk about the past. Dmitry sighed._

 _"_ _No, no. I know from the file dump that happened last month. I also know what exactly your friend used to do." Dmitry gave Lana a look that read of concern._

 _"_ _So?"_

 _"_ _Don't you think it's a little dangerous working with him? He's killed people."_

 _"_ _So what? He doesn't do that anymore, and I can stop him." Lana crossed her arms over her chest. "Besides, how am I any different from him?" She looked down at her feet and frowned._

 _"_ _Hey, look at me," Dmitry grabbed Lana's biceps and craned his head so that Lana could see him, "Don't dwell on what happened in the past." Lana glanced up at Dmitry and nodded. She stood straight again and gave Dmitry a small smile. She saw the smile on Dmitry's face, but there was a look in his eyes that betrayed whatever Dmitry was trying to convey through his smile._

 _"_ _What are you hiding from me?" she asked. Lana saw Dmitry's change of expression and was even more curious to know what he was hiding._

 _"_ _If I tell you, will you promise me to not go back to Sokovia?" he asked._

 _"_ _I promise," Lana answered, but she was partially lying._

 _"_ _The rest of the experiments, HYDRA still has them. In fact, some sources have told me that they're wanting to replicate them." Lana stared at him in shock._

 _"_ _I thought you weren't with HYDRA," was the only thing she could get herself to say._

 _"_ _I'm not. I just have people who get dirt on them in case HYDRA tries to come after me. Of course, I won't need them now that the file dump happened. But Lana, don't go back to Sokovia."_

 _"_ _What about the replications? They could kill people, Dmitry."_

 _"_ _I know, but if they know that you're alive- think of what could happen, Lana." Lana looked away and let out a shaky breath. "Worry about you and your friend. No one else, just the two of you. Got it?" Lana looked back at Dmitry and nodded._

 _"_ _Got it." Dmitry smiled at Lana and wrapped her in a hug._

* * *

Lana blinked the memory away and focused on the road. She worked on quelling the worry in her until she heard a grunt from Bucky. Lana glanced over to see his face contorted and his fists clenching and unclenching in his sleep. Lana knew it was a nightmare, but she didn't see what it was about because she's staying true to her promise. She waited nervously for Bucky to wake up and was scared for what he might do when he woke up. It took everything in Lana's power to not swerve the car when Bucky woke up with a loud gasp. She looked again to see Bucky looking around wildly, trying to determine if he was awake or not. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "You okay?" she asked, which made Bucky jump in shock. She felt Bucky staring at her as she turned her attention to the road again.

"Yeah, fine," he answered. "Where're we at?"

"Kecskemét, Hungary."

"That far?" Lana looked in the rearview mirror to see Bucky's metal arm reaching for Lana's backpack.

"It's only been about four hours since we left Bratislava," she said as Bucky pulled the backpack into his lap and unzipped one of the pockets. She glanced over to see Bucky pull out one of the bags of trail mix Lana stole from Maria's ship. Lana smirked. "Hungry?" she questioned jokingly.

"Starving," Bucky replied before shoving a handful of trail mix into his mouth.

"Don't eat all of our food," Lana teased. "That bag of trail mix looks like it wouldn't fill one-fourth of your stomach."

"And why's that?" he asked after swallowing the trail mix.

"Because you look like your metabolism runs faster than a cheetah."

"I don't think it's that fast."

"But you do admit that you have a fast metabolism. Was that always a Bucky Barnes-related trait?"

"No, that was after I joined the army," Bucky stated. Lana raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"Did I just trigger another memory?" she asked.

"Yeah," Bucky answered solemnly.

"Oh, is it a bad one? Sorry."

"No, don't blame yourself for it." He looked over to Lana. "D'you want to know how I survived the fall?" he asked.

"Only if you're okay with talking about it."

"I am."

"Then tell me the story of how the great Bucky Barnes survived falling from the train," Lana spoke dramatically.

"I wouldn't call myself great," he commented and began his story before Lana could protest against Bucky's self-loathing. She listened as Bucky explained how his army unit was captured by HYDRA and kept to work on "some plane" according to Bucky. Bucky said that he got sick while working and had to be Zola's test subject instead. He said he remembered Zola saying to one of the assistants something about remaking a serum of some kind. "I don't really know what it was, but I'm sure it was what made me survive falling off the train."

"So, HYDRA saved your life," Lana commented quietly.

"I don't think it's really saving it."

"Well, yeah, but you could say they stopped you from dying early." Lana noticed that Bucky didn't say anything back to that. Lana felt disbelief as her mind brought up the possibility that Bucky thought he should've died when he fell from the train. "Hey, Bucky," she said after a silence that lasted too long.

"What?" he asked quietly.

"Thank you. For letting me help you, and for watching my back," she said. "I'm glad that you're still alive. Because if you weren't, I wouldn't be having probably the greatest time of my life," she added with a grin.

"Greatest time of your life?" Bucky questioned in disbelief.

"Well, compared to past life events, I'd say this is pretty great. Sure, there's been a few bad moments, but we're still in one piece and getting close to Romania. And you're a nice travel buddy," Lana answered with a chuckle. She could hear a hum of laughter from Bucky, and Lana felt accomplished that she may have stopped the self-loathing for a little bit. "So," she began, "What's the first thing you want to do when we get to Romania?" She could see out of the corner of her eye Bucky tilting his head back in thought.

"Find a library," he answered.

"Can you read Romanian?"

"Yeah."

"Are you giving yourself a long overdue history lesson?" Lana asked.

"I am."

Lana smirked, "Well, I know a way to do it that is a lot faster than books. Do you know what a computer is, Bucky?"

"Sounds familiar."

"Good, because there's this thing called the Internet, and it is very helpful in giving you information. And we can access it at a library."

"Alright." Lana smiled in excitement at the prospect of telling Bucky about modern technology. Her excitement was boosted when a song she particularly liked started playing.

"Oh! This is a really good song, Bucky," she said as she turned the volume up. _"I've paid my dues,"_ she sang quietly and stopped. _"-And bad mistakes, I've made a few,"_ Lana continued with a small smile.

"You like this song?" Bucky questioned with slight amusement.

"Yes, I do," Lana replied quickly. She grinned as the chorus began. _"We are the champions, my friend!"_ she sang and shook Bucky by the shoulder at the _"my friend"_ part. Lana looked over and saw Bucky shake his head in amusement at Lana's excitement. "I told you it's a really good song."

 **Cenad, Romania.**

It was dark when Bucky and Lana finally made it to Cenad after dropping the Beetle off in Makó, Hungary. They had to walk to Cenad; the only convenience was that sneaking across the border was easier. As Lana walked beside Bucky, she plugged her headphones into her Walkman and set them on her head, leaving one ear exposed. "Well, we made it to Romania," she said with excitement. Bucky didn't say anything back. Lana stepped closer to him and wedged her way under his right arm.

"What are you doing?" Bucky asked.

"Hugging you, and I'm kind of using you as a pillar of support," she replied with a chuckle.

"Tired already?" Bucky teased.

"Nope." Lana stepped away from Bucky and shoved her hands into her pocket. "So," she began after a brief silence, "Since we're in Romania, do you want to start teaching me some more Romanian?"

"What do you want to know?"

So Lana made it like a game. She would give a word in English; Bucky would say it in Romanian; and Lana would repeat it a few times in Romanian.

"Okay. What's Romanian for 'big brother'?" Lana asked at one point.

"You don't know what that is in Romanian?"

"No, that's why I'm asking you."

"Alright. It's _fratele mai mare._ " Lana nodded with a mischievous smirk on her face that Bucky didn't see. She turned to Bucky and started walking sideways. Lana poked Bucky on the shoulder.

" _Fratele mai mare_ ," she repeated. Bucky looked over at her with a look of surprise.

"What'd you do that for?" he asked, which made Lana giggle.

"I'm just having fun." She saw Bucky shake his head.

"It's been a long time since someone's called me that."

"Well, I don't think you know very many people who speak-"

"I mean- you know-"

"Big brother," Lana finished as she turned to walk forwards.

"Yeah, exactly."

"It's nice, isn't it?"

"It's better than some of the other things I've been called." They continued walking and saw some buildings in the distance. Lana bobbed her head to the music until she felt a poke on her shoulder. " _Soră mai mică_."

"What does that mean?"

"Kid sister." Lana laughed and shook her head.

"Really? _Kid_ sister?"

"I was only returning the favor."

Lana laughed sarcastically, "Alright, whatever you say."

* * *

 **A/N: A new chapter is here! Happy belated Fourth of July for all of the 'Muricans reading this. I tried posting this on the Fourth, but alas, I had family parties and many distractions. I also think Marvel fans should be aware that July 4 is good old Cap-Cap-Cippity-Captain America's birthday. How patriotic! Holidays and birthdays of fictional characters aside, leave a review or favorite or follow if you enjoyed.**

 ***BlibBlabs***

 **-As of the time I'm writing this A/N, Captain America:The First Avenger is on. I literally paused whatever music/video I had playing in the background whilst writing whenever Bucky Barnes was onscreen.**

 **-My friend left a review on this fic, but he didn't tell me until we met up a few days ago because he's sneaky like that. I already knew it was him though, because I have some pretty good deduction skills.**

 **-The song I mentioned in this chapter is "We Are the Champions" by Queen. Does anyone think the first verse is a spot-on description of Bucky Barnes?**

 **-Also, I've been doing "extensive" research on the movie _The Bronze,_ which has Sebastian Stan in it (for ten minutes, so I've heard). But oh my, does it look bad. **

**-But I do feel pretty cool since I want to make my own critical opinion on it.**

 **-I've also seen that *scene* which was basically one of the film's (weak) selling points, and I'm like, "Why?"**

 **-Seriously, if the actress didn't want to commit to that scene and used a body double, then why have the scene in the movie? It was only one minute and thirty-four seconds long. Would it really make that much of a difference if it was taken out?**

 **-But you know what? Props to Sebastian Stan for doing that entire scene except for two parts (which he said he would have done if he had more time to practice), and for finding fun in working on that movie, because he actually contributed to the making of the movie. He's the real MVP.**

 **-I just talked about an indie movie in the A/N of a Marvel fan fiction. Well then.**

 ***BlibBlabs Over***

 **-SirFangirl**


	9. Running to the Train

**Sinnicolau-Mare, Romania. May 13, 2014.**

Bucky sat with Lana at a secluded booth in the bar they decided to stop at. Lana sat with her legs stretched out to Bucky's side of the booth as she was tired from all of the walking. "All right," Lana said after taking a sip of the non-alcoholic beer that Bucky ordered for her. "We can find a train station in the morning and take the train."

"Then what do we do for the rest of the night?" Bucky asked.

"Don't know. We could find a rooftop to camp out on. It'll be like back in New York."

"Yeah." Bucky raised his glass of beer to his lips and took a sip. He nearly dropped the glass when he heard a loud thud come from the other end of the room. Bucky leaned out of the booth to see a heavily tattooed man collecting money from an angry drunk. The man with tattoos asked in Romanian for better competition as someone filled thirty shot glasses with some kind of liquor. Bucky rolled his eyes and leaned back into his seat.

"What's going on?" Lana asked.

"Drinking game," Bucky answered.

"Oh. Is there money involved?"

"Yeah. I'm not letting you do that, if that's what you're thinking."

"Please, they would have to see if I was old enough to do it. You could do it, since you apparently can't get drunk."

"I'll pass. It's not like we need the money."

"I guess," Lana muttered into her glass before taking another sip. As she was setting her drink down, a booming voice speaking Romanian sounded in Bucky and Lana's direction. Lana jumped in shock, and her drink nearly spilled out. Bucky leaned out of the booth again to see the tattooed man pointing at him followed by two men approaching the booth. Lana peeked out as well but quickly sat back. "Whatever you do, don't punch them. We can't start a bar fight," she said just before the men approached the table.

One of the men spoke in Romanian that Bucky was requested for competing against the tattooed man. Bucky said back that he doesn't want to play because he was a lightweight (a word Lana told him about when Bucky was explaining why he got her the non-alcoholic beer). This didn't seem to bother the two men as one of them grabbed Bucky by the arm and pulled him out of the seat. Bucky sighed since he knew he couldn't push these guys off of him because that wouldn't make things better. He sat across from the tattooed man and looked down at the fifteen shot glasses spread out on Bucky's side of the table. The tattooed man had the same amount on his end. Bucky was given an explanation for what was being played. The rules were that they took a shot every minute for fifteen minutes or until one of them can't take it anymore. The alcohol in the shot glasses was extremely strong according to one of the tipsy spectators who also angrily stated the tattooed man never made it through all fifteen either. An ashtray with a folded stack of _leu_ notes in it was placed in between the rows of shot glasses. The tattooed man demanded that Bucky give something up for the betting, but Bucky said he didn't have anything to offer. The man looked down at Bucky's gloved hands, and Bucky could tell what the man was thinking. He took his hands off of the table and stated that the gloves are not going in the ashtray. This led to yelling from the man who was saying Bucky won't leave until something is offered up, but a few euro notes were dropped in the ashtray.

" _Sunt euro, dar le puteți face schimb pentru leu_ ," Lana said before grabbing a nearby chair and sitting down near Bucky. " _Acum, să-l joace._ " The tattooed man grinned and grabbed the first shot to his right. Bucky grabbed the first to his left and was about to drink it before he was stopped by the tattooed man. Bucky was told they had to clink their glasses before drinking the first shot. Bucky sighed in exasperation and clinked his glass against the tattooed man's. Bucky downed the first shot and cringed at the bad taste of the alcohol. The tattooed man laughed at Bucky's disgust and teased him about not going to be able to make it through all fifteen. Bucky ignored him and leaned back into the chair as he waited for the next minute.

* * *

As the game progressed, Bucky managed to tolerate the awful taste as excited chatter sounded around him at how many shots he's taken. He gave the tattooed man a smirk before downing the tenth shot, which Bucky could tell was stressing the man out. The tattooed man picked up his tenth shot glass and quickly drank it down. He set the glass back down with a grimace.

* * *

By the thirteenth shot, Bucky could tell the tattooed man was getting drunk. The man shakily raised his thirteenth shot to his lips and started to drink, but some of the alcohol spilled out. Some of the spectators were telling the tattooed man to stop before he got sick, but the tattooed man would yell that he can finish it. Another minute passed, and Bucky picked up his fourteenth shot. The tattooed man did the same. As Bucky downed the shot, he heard the sound of retching on the tattooed man's side. Bucky set the glass down and saw the man throwing up whilst bent over the side of the chair. With a smirk, Bucky grabbed the money out of the ashtray and downed the fifteenth shot. The drunks watching cheered in excitement. Bucky stood up and turned his back to the table, but he didn't walk forward as someone grabbed the hood of his jacket. He turned around to see the tattooed man's red face yelling curses at him before swinging a punch at Bucky. Bucky quickly blocked it and pushed the tattooed man away. What followed happened like dominos falling down, as the tattooed man was shoved into a customer who wasn't watching the game and was punched by said customer. It wasn't long before a full bar fight occurred. Bucky grabbed Lana's hand and ran to the door. "Wait!" Lana yelled over the noise of the fight. Bucky stopped and let go of Lana's hand. He watched as Lana ran to their booth and grabbed her backpack from under the table. "Okay, let's go," she said when she ran back to Bucky. But before they could start running again, a chair was thrown and came hurtling towards them. Bucky stepped in front of Lana and held out his left arm. The chair hit Bucky's arm and broke. "Nice job," Lana said before running to the door with Bucky.

* * *

Bucky and Lana managed to find an abandoned building to stay in since the rooftops were being covered in rain. Bucky sat against a wall while Lana was wandering-slash-dancing around the room with the headphones to her Walkman over her ears. "Remind me to never get into any more drinking games ever again," he said to Lana.

Lana stopped mid-twirl and removed her headphones, "What'd you say?"

"I said to remind me to never get into any more drinking games."

Lana grinned, "Only if you don't start any more bar fights," she teased.

"Hey, that guy threw the first punch. He started it," Bucky defended with the same joking tone.

"Yes, obviously." Lana chuckled, "You were being extremely sassy when you got to the last couple of shots."

"Sassy?" Bucky questioned.

"Yes," Lana said before slipping her headphones on but leaving one ear exposed. She continued walking around the room and occasionally twirling.

"Why are you dancing?" Bucky asked.

"Because I like this song," she answered while pointing to her Walkman. "Do you think dancing is a muscle memory?" Lana asked before humming the song she was listening to.

"What's a muscle memory?"

"It's like something you've learned to do, and you can remember how to do it without having to think about how to do it because you've done it so much. I think dancing is one because you learn how to dance." Bucky nodded in understanding. He looked down at his hands until he saw Lana's hand held out to him. Bucky looked up at her. "Care to dance?" she asked with playfulness in her eyes.

"I don't know if I'm a good dancer."

"Neither do I. Come on, it's fun. Please." She took off her headphones and let them rest around her neck before she turned the volume on her Walkman to the max. Music could be heard coming from the headphones. "See, we got music. Now, let's dance," she said as she grabbed Bucky's left hand and pulled him to his feet. "So, how did you dance back then?" she asked. Bucky tried to remember all of the times he danced back then. Maybe there was a dance where you went one, two, three, four-

"Is this how you danced back then?" Lana asked with a laugh. Bucky then realized that he was dancing with Lana.

"Yeah, I think so." Bucky smiled at being able to remember how to dance.

"This is fun," Lana said as Bucky spun her. She laughed, "So we can confirm that dancing is a muscle memory."

Bucky smirked, "I think so." He wrapped his right arm around Lana's waist and dipped her. Lana burst into a fit of laughter after Bucky set her back on her feet. Bucky could feel that infectious laughter from Lana rise up in him. His laughter was quiet, but Lana still noticed it. She smiled and hugged Bucky, which took him by surprise. Her face was buried in his jacket covering his metal shoulder, which made Bucky wonder if that was hurting her.

"Thank you for dancing with me," she said into his jacket. Bucky wrapped his right arm around her, not wanting to use his left one out of fear of crushing her with it.

"You're welcome," he said back. It felt weird to have someone thank him, he thought. No one at HYDRA ever thanked him because Bucky was expected to do what they ordered. Nevertheless, being thanked was nice. It makes him feel appreciated. Bucky was snapped out of his thoughts when he felt Lana move his left arm around her.

"It's not a genuine hug if you use one arm," she explained.

* * *

 **May 14, 2014.**

Bucky and Lana went to a small store after Lana insisted that Bucky spend some of the money he won last night on himself. They went to the train station earlier but found out that the train to Bucharest hadn't returned yet and that the only train returning was to Timișoara. Bucky walked past the aisles with Lana, but stopped when he saw an aisle with numerous journals. He walked to the shelves of journals with Lana following behind.

"Journals?" she questioned. Bucky grabbed a brown journal and flipped through the empty pages.

"So I can write memories down," Bucky explained as he grabbed a plain blue one, and a red- no, the green one; red journals remind him of something he doesn't want to remember- and a gray one, and maybe-

"Don't spend all of our money," Lana said in amusement. Bucky looked at the four journals in his hands and shrugged.

"I'm still keeping these," Bucky said as he walked out of the aisle. Lana chuckled behind him as she followed him out of the aisle.

* * *

Bucky and Lana left the store with the journals, a packet of pens, and a backpack for Bucky to carry his journals in along with the few new clothes they got for Bucky. Bucky walked beside Lana and was scribbling down in the brown journal all of the memories he remembered having since D.C. Normally, he would be more concerned about keeping an eye out for anyone wanting to attack him, but writing down all of his memories are more important. Besides, Lana was there, and Bucky trusts her enough to warn him of anyone suspicious. He stopped writing and drew a box around a few lines of memories. "Are these right?" he asked as he handed Lana the journal.

"What do you mean?" she asked while looking at the journal.

"The ones I boxed, those are the memories I remember telling you since we met. Did I get them right, and did I write down all of the ones I told you?"

Bucky watched Lana study the journal page. Finally, she gave it back to Bucky. "Yeah, you got them," she answered with a smile. Bucky nodded and closed the journal. The train station he and Lana visited earlier could be seen in the distance. "I wonder what happened to the people from the bar last night," she mused.

"They probably got injured."

"Obviously. You think one of them had to pay for property damage? Because a chair was broken, that's for sure."

"Probably. Hope it's the Tattoo Guy who has to pay it."

"That has to be one awful morning to wake up to. Hungover, bruised, and having to pay for property damage." Lana chuckled. "And we got away scot-free. Nice." As he was close to the train station, Bucky could see a train pulling in behind the station.

"Train's here," he stated. Lana looked ahead and saw the train as well.

"That it is, Buck-Buck. To the train!"

* * *

Bucky was continuing writing his brown journal now that he was on the train. The compartment of the train didn't have that many people on it to Bucky's relief. He glanced over at Lana, who was staring out of the window as the train moved down the tracks. Bucky looked back to his journal. Aside from writing down memories about the past, Bucky was also writing about events that happened since D.C., but he was currently writing down anything he knew about Lana should he forget. He hopes he won't forget, but he can't put too much stock into his ability to remember.

So far, Bucky had written down words or phrases to describe Lana. Fearless, stubborn at times, energetic, gets drunk easily, screams into her blanket after a stressful situation (escaping HYDRA on a motorboat), has a Walkman and cassette tapes, somewhat strong, can read minds and do mind control, from Sokovia, had a bad mom- these were some of the things Bucky had written down about Lana. He looked over the page again to see if there was anything he forgot. As Bucky felt Lana rest her head on his right arm, Bucky realized that he forgot something.

 _Sora mica._

It was better to write it in Romanian in case someone who didn't know Romanian found his journal and decided to look through it. That, and Bucky had a thought that maybe writing _little sister_ in Romanian would be helpful in remembering Lana.

"Are you writing about me?" Lana asked.

"Yeah."

"How come?" It was then that Bucky decide to add "nosy" on the page.

"In case I forget you," Bucky answered.

"Oh, okay. But I wouldn't say I'm nosy," she stated jokingly.

"Mm, I'm not so sure about that," Bucky teased. He heard Lana's sarcastic laugh and felt her wrapping her arms around his right arm. It reminded him to write "hugs a lot" in his journal.

"Yeah, that's true," Lana commented on the list's new addition.

* * *

 **Timișoara, Romania.**

Bucky stood beside Lana at the ticket booth in the train station they had to stop at. Lana was working on getting tickets to a train that would take them to Bucharest. Bucky was looking at various places in the crowded train station until he saw a man in a suit staring at him over a newspaper. Bucky looked away and tried to discreetly lower his cap. When he looked back, the man was still there, but he was talking into a cell phone, which made Bucky even more concerned. He heard Lana say something to him, but he wasn't paying attention. Bucky quickly threw his arm over her shoulders and started walking to the doors to the boarding platform.

"Bucky, what are you doing?" Lana asked. Bucky glanced over his shoulder to see the man following him and Lana.

"Someone's following us. It's a guy in a gray suit with red hair." He saw Lana look over her shoulder to see the man. She looked back at Bucky.

"He's HYDRA," she said somewhat calmly. Bucky looked ahead for a way to throw the man off. "I told him to not follow us and to not say where we were," Lana added. Bucky then remembered that Lana can control people, and he felt stupid for not realizing that earlier. He relaxed and removed his arm from Lana's shoulders.

"Did you find out what he was doing here?" Bucky asked.

"No, I didn't look that far into his head," Lana answered. Bucky nodded and continued walking to the double doors.

"Soldier!" a gruff, female voice called. Bucky's blood ran cold as he looked behind him to see a woman with blond hair and a man with brown hair marching up to him and Lana. Bucky and Lana didn't hesitate to start running as they weaved through the confused crowd to get to the boarding platforms. The HYDRA agents continued to give chase as Bucky and Lana burst through the doors that led to the boarding platforms. Bucky saw a corner up ahead and went around it with Lana. Things seemed fine, until they encountered the extremely tall wall blocking them. It got worse when the HYDRA agents caught up with them.

"Soldier, you have no idea how much trouble you are in," the woman spoke. Bucky frantically tried to remember if he knew this woman, more importantly, if she was so high-up that she knew how to activate the Winter Soldier.

"You're not taking him!" Lana yelled to the woman. The woman shot Lana an unimpressed glare.

"I'm afraid we have to, Miss Adamovich," the man said mockingly. So that was Lana's last name.

"Don't call me that," Lana snapped. Bucky looked over to see Lana's fists clenched and her jaw tense.

"But that is who you are, no?" The man edged closer to Lana, and Bucky knew exactly what he was doing. Bucky stepped in front of Lana.

"Don't touch her," he growled. The man stopped in his tracks.

"Do not worry, Agent," the woman said. "His bark is worse than his bite."

"You have no idea what you're talking about, Blondie," Lana said over Bucky's shoulder. "Tell me what you are doing here," she commanded.

"HYDRA isn't done fighting yet," the woman began, "We may have had a major setback, but the war with S.H.I.E.L.D. still goes on."

"You're not telling me anything."

"HYDRA has been capturing S.H.I.E.L.D. bases ever since we dragged them down with us," the woman explained with a sardonic grin. "Imagine our luck when the Winter Soldier and Lana Adamovich showed up in Romania. You're ours again; don't try to fight it." Just as the woman finished saying that, the man leaped at Bucky to attack. Bucky grabbed the man by his suit jacket and threw him aside. The woman approached him and gave him a swift kick in the side. Bucky was thrown off balance and stumbled away from Lana and into the punch of the man. He ignored the pain and punched the man back with his metal arm. Bucky looked back to see Lana struggling to get out of the woman's chokehold, but before he could even take a step, the man grabbed Bucky by the jacket and pinned him to the wall. Bucky struggled against the man's grip until the man suddenly let go. Bucky turned around to see the woman had let go of Lana and was standing next to the man.

"Get them," Lana said shakily. Bucky looked over to see the grimace on her face and the blood trickling from her nose. He didn't hesitate to grab both of their attackers by the necks and pin them to the wall. He made sure to grip them tight enough that they would become unconscious.

"Cut off one head," the woman said before biting the inside of her cheek.

"Two more shall take its place," the man added before biting the inside of his cheek. Bucky dropped them to the ground when he saw the foam bubbling from their mouths.

"Hail HYDRA," they said. Bucky stared at the lifeless bodies before him.

"Bucky, we have to go," he heard Lana say. He turned around and saw Lana wiping the blood off of her face. Her face was pale and she looked like she could barely stand up.

"You okay?" he asked as he walked to her. Lana's answer was her stumbling to Bucky and collapsing against his chest. "Hey, hey," he said as he gently pushed Lana off of him and wrapped his arm around her waist for support. "Come on, let's go."

* * *

When he and Lana got on the train, Bucky was quick to give Lana her blanket after being in a stressful situation as what happened with the HYDRA agents. She weakly nodded as a thanks and wrapped it around her shoulders. Bucky slouched in his seat and sighed. He remembered what Lana said to him in Hanover about not being able to mind control more than one person because it was like splitting her brain into numerous parts. That must've been what she did back at the station and why she's so weak. Bucky looked down to see Lana leaning against his arm.

"My brain hurts so much," she complained quietly.

"I know," Bucky said as he used his free hand to push her hair out of her face. Lana weakly smiled.

"Thanks." She closed her eyes. "I owe you an explanation."

"About what?"

"My past. You've told me about yours, but I've never told you about mine that much."

"Never really bothered me," Bucky said, but he was lying.

"Yeah, but you still deserve to know. I'll have to tell you when we get to the safe house."

Bucky nodded, "Get some sleep, okay?"

"M'kay." Lana curled her legs up in her seat and wrapped her arms around Bucky's arm. Bucky looked out the window of the train as he tried to mentally recover from all that happened.

* * *

 **A/N: Chapter Nine is here on the Ninth! And they're getting to Bucharest, even if they did run into some HYDRA agents. You have no idea how much researching I was-slash-have been doing for this fanfic to try and get it as accurate to the MCU as possible. If you enjoyed this chapter, leave a review, or a favorite, or a follow, or all three. It's up to you!**

 ***BlibBlabs***

 **-So,** **this story has reached over 1,000 views! Aah, thank you everyone who's viewed this! I appreciate you all so much.**

 **-I've found some unreleased Lana Del Rey tracks on SoundCloud, and some of them I'd listen to while writing this chapter.**

 **-To the Guest who left a review on this fic: Thank you for liking the fact that Bucky and Lana are like brother and sister. Your review made me happy (as do all of the reviews this fic gets, but I digress). I totally know what you mean about reading to many romance fics about everyone's** **favorite ex-HYDRA assassin, even though there are some pretty good ones.**

 **-I had the idea of Bucky inadvertently getting into a drinking game and owning it because sort-of-Super Soldier Serum-serum and getting kind of smug towards the end of it for a while now.**

 **-Oh, and translations.**

 **-** ** _Sunt euro, dar le puteți face schimb pentru leu =_ They're euros, but you can exchange them for leu **

**-** ** _Acum, să-l joace_** **= Now, let him play.**

 **-The other Romanian words are explained in the chapter.**

 ***BlibBlabs Over***

 **-SirFangirl**


	10. She's Done Bad Things, But So Have I

**Bucharest, Romania. May 14, 2014.**

"Lana, hey, wake up," was what Lana heard followed by the feeling of shaking. She slowly opened her eyes to see Bucky trying to wake her up until he saw Lana was awake.

"Hey," she said with a yawn. "Did the train stop?"

"Yeah. We made it to Bucharest," Bucky answered as he stood up, "How are you feeling?"

Lana shrugged. The splitting headache she has earlier was gone, but she was still worn out. "Tired," she answered. "But I can walk." To prove her point, she stood up and grabbed her bag from Bucky's hand. They walked out of the train and into the station. Lana pulled the hood of her jacket over her head as she didn't have much faith in her hat hiding her face considering what happened in Timișoara.

Lana wondered if anyone found the two HYDRA agents lying dead with the cyanide foaming from their mouths. She doesn't really know why they committed suicide, but then again, they probably thought Bucky was going to strangle them to death and decided to do the deed themselves. But to Lana, she doesn't really care. They tried to capture her and Bucky, and they got what they deserved for it in the end. Yeah, maybe Bucky should have put "selfish" on that list of details about her. A clap of thunder brought Lana out of her thoughts. She yelped in surprise.

"Scared of a little thunder?" Bucky asked in amusement.

"No, it just caught me by surprise," Lana defended. As she walked out of the train station's exit, Lana was grateful she pulled her hood up now that rain was pouring onto the streets of Bucharest.

"This way," Bucky said as he grabbed Lana's hand and led her to the safe house.

* * *

The safe house was actually a small apartment in an ordinary-looking apartment building. It didn't have any food or water in it, but there was a cabinet stocked with guns and other weapons. The bathroom had running water, which Lana saw as an added bonus along with electricity. She couldn't help but notice that the safe house (or should it be safe apartment?) had two green walls, one red wall, and a wall with peeling, floral wallpaper and chipped tile. It was sort of endearing to Lana. The windows were covered with newspapers, but it wasn't a bother to Lana. There was also a lone mattress under one of the windows. Another clap of thunder sounded as Lana sat on the green couch in the room. "So, this is the safe house- no, apartment- safe apartment," she said to Bucky, who was checking through the weapons in the cabinet. He hummed what sounded like "yeah" to Lana. Lana shrugged her backpack off of her shoulders and unzipped the pockets. She grabbed as much of the canned foods that she stole from Maria's ship in Hanover and carried the canned foods to the small island counter. "You hungry?" Lana asked Bucky.

"I guess," Bucky answered as he closed the door to the weapons cabinet. Lana looked at the labels of the cans she brought over. "Do you still want to talk about your past?" Bucky asked. Lana remembered how she said on the train that she would tell Bucky about that. She looked up to see Bucky looking at her.

"Yeah," she replied, "After I fix something to eat."

* * *

Talking about the past was done over some canned spaghetti. Lana turned herself on the couch to face Bucky and took a bite of her portion of spaghetti. "So, where should I begin?" she asked, more to herself than Bucky.

"Wherever you want to begin," Bucky stated before scooping up some spaghetti with his fork.

"Alright. Mm, I'm an only child. My dad was a politician of some kind, but I never really knew specifically what he did. My mom was some kind of CEO for some business, but she never really told me what exactly it was." Lana grabbed her water bottle off of the floor and took a drink. "But I guess my childhood was normal until my father," she paused, "Died."

"How'd he die?" Bucky asked. Lana looked down at her plate. It felt weird to be asked that question, because that question would bring up bad memories. "Sorry. I shouldn't have asked," she heard Bucky say.

"No, it's okay," she stated and looked back up. "Someone shot him. I don't know who did it; the police never figured it out. But he was shot while he was playing outside with me, that's why my mother would always blame me for him getting shot." Lana felt anger rise in her, but she managed to suppress most of it. "She never seemed to accept that I was three when it happened; I couldn't have known any better."

"You're right," Bucky agreed quietly. Lana assumed that was his way of trying to comfort her, but she still appreciated it.

"Yeah. But after that, my mother never really talked to me, and I was practically drowned in tutoring, as that was my mother's way of getting me away from her. Not like I really wanted to talk to her, because I'd always find something else to do when I finished a session with my tutors. So, when I was offered by Doctor List- he was like Strucker's sidekick, or something- a chance to quote-un-quote help my failing country, I was happy to agree."

"What happened to Sokovia?" Bucky inquired. Lana remembered that Bucky's not up to date with world history.

"Lot of stuff. There was a rebellion because the people didn't like the fact that their homes were being destroyed by weapons from Stark Industries." Lana scraped the last of her spaghetti off of her plate and finished it off. She was about to offer taking Bucky's empty plate to the sink, but Bucky was one step ahead of her when he grabbed Lana's plate and carried his plate and her plate to the sink. "Thanks. Anyways, the people had a lot of protests against Stark and the Avengers too, so that led to S.H.I.E.L.D. occupying our country for peacekeeping or some nonsense like that. Although, I'm starting to doubt that it was actually S.H.I.E.L.D. that barged into my country."

"Why's that?" Bucky asked while sitting back down on the couch.

"Because, now that it's known that HYDRA was growing inside of S.H.I.E.L.D., how can we be so sure that it was actually them and not HYDRA who did the occupation? Also, I've read the minds of the people who did the experiments, and they were definitely hailing HYDRA in their minds. And what's the perfect way for HYDRA people to convince rebellious, angry Sokovians to be subject to weird experiments?"

"Stage an occupation done by S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Exactly!" Lana exclaimed. She was happy to see Bucky was able to understand what she was trying to say, because Lana knows he's not an idiot. "Anyways, they actually got quite a lot of people to volunteer, and the volunteers were all protesters against the occupation. I don't know all of the experiments they did to them, but I know they were deadly." Lana played with the fabric on her jacket so that she would have an excuse to lower her head and hide the frown on her face. All of those people, and only two were known to have survived. Too bad Lana doesn't have time travel as a power.

"You alright?"

Lana lifted her head back up. She's starting to think Bucky has some kind of "I know something's wrong" sense or something. "Yeah, I'm fine." She propped her elbow on the back of the couch and rested her head on her fist. "But I think my group had the deadliest experiments. It honestly seemed like they were doing two experiments at once." A thought appeared in her head, and Lana's eyes widened in realization. "Hey, remember when we were driving outside of Kecskemét, and you told me about how you thought you survived the fall?"

"Yeah."

"And you thought it had something to do with that serum Zola was making?" Lana saw Bucky nod. "I think Zola was recreating the Super Soldier Serum. Granted, it wouldn't be the same as what was used for Captain America, but he was close to replicating it. No one ever told you that?" Bucky shook his head. "Hm, that was rude of them. Then again, they're HYDRA, so what can you expect?" she muttered. "I thought of that when I was thinking of the experiments I had to go through. See, my group was the first one to undergo experimentation, and they had this staff with this glowing thing in it- they called it the Scepter, actually. Apparently, the glowing thing in the Scepter was actually giving off radiation, and so, one way to give my group that radiation was to put it in liquid form. Another thing they were making was a new Super Soldier Serum. So, they put two and two together and made this unholy combination of radiation from some glowing stone from space and a highly sought-after serum. So, I'm practically three-fourths Super Soldier."

"Three-fourths Super Soldier?" Bucky echoed.

"Well, I never went through all of the experiments. They gave me the serum in doses because giving it to me all together would've killed me, and I only got six out of eight doses. But yeah, after I found out that I was a lab rat for HYDRA, I faked dying and escaped. So, all of Sokovia thinks that the Adamovich family is dead." Lana then realized what she said in that last sentence. Great, now Bucky's going to-

"Isn't your mother still alive?" he questioned.

Lana closed her fists shut and bit the inside of her cheek. "Before I was offered to be a lab rat," she began, deciding to answer by dodging the question at first, "I had a really bad argument with my mother. I was wanting to go overseas to study Engineering, but she'd rather have me rot in my old home. She also said that I didn't need to have that much money spent on me," she added dryly. "So, after I escaped HYDRA, I was thinking that my mother would welcome me with open arms and that she would talk about how much she missed me. Instead, she was just sitting contentedly on the balcony to her bedroom with a glass of wine and a smile on her face. A smile, Bucky. I've never seen her smile before. And I was really angry then, I was used by HYDRA, lost friends because of them, and when I confronted my mother on that balcony, she had the most disgusted look on her face and thought I was a ghost. None of the staff was at the house because they went to theirs homes, so," she stopped. How could she explain to Bucky what she did. Would he understand her? Be scared of her?

"Did you control her?" Bucky asked quietly. His tone didn't have any fear or anger in it- why?

"Yeah. I made her jump," she answered with no remorse or sadness that normal people would have when talking about making someone commit suicide. Bucky looked at Lana with- pity? She wasn't sure what it was, but it wasn't anger or fear like she thought. "I think the worst part is that I don't feel anything about it. When I think about it, I don't want to cry or feel sorry that I did it. No, I feel sorry that I _don't_ feel anything doing it. People would think I'm a sociopath or something. But my mother was a _bad person_. It's not like she made any good changes to society; she was right up there with all of the HYDRA leaders and aliens and people who've attacked the world. Why should I feel bad?" Lana turned away from Bucky and stared at the red wall in front of her. "Then again, I'm sure people would regard me as a bad person, so what's the point?" she chuckled dryly. Lana didn't hear anything in response from Bucky, and she didn't want to look back at him and see that look in his eyes. "Anyways, I ran away, stayed in New York for a few months, and then I met you," she added, hoping that it would do something to change the atmosphere. Of course, it didn't do much for Lana. She sighed before feeling Bucky's right arm wrap around her shoulders and pull her to him. Bucky didn't say anything, but the hug was speaking volumes to Lana. She wanted to cry happy tears, but instead smiled and wrapped her arms around his torso. "Thank you."

* * *

It's been a couple of hours since Lana and Bucky got to the safe apartment, and the rain still poured relentlessly. It wasn't thundering as bad as early, but there were still a few claps of thunder here and there. Lana didn't mind it that much as it provided nice background noise while she was curled up under her blanket and dozing off against Bucky's arm. She could feel the muscles in his arm move slightly as he was writing in his journal. Lana sneaked a glance at the page Bucky was writing on and saw that he was writing about Lana telling him about her past. He didn't have everything down, mainly because Lana didn't get the chance to bring up everything, but there was a line on the page that caught Lana's attention.

 _She's done bad things. But so have I._

Lana felt a mix of contentment and discontentment in her. She was content that Bucky could accept the fact that Lana did, in fact, do bad things, but she was also discontent because Bucky had no choice when it came to the bad he's done. Lana doesn't understand why he seemingly can't accept that he had no choice, but then again, she isn't Bucky. Lana disregarded the thought, as sleep was on her mind. She closed her eyes and half-consciously tightened the blanket around her. She felt herself being picked up from the couch, but didn't bother to react due to her sleepiness. Lana felt herself being gently place upon the mattress and heard Bucky whisper goodnight to her before completely falling asleep.

* * *

 **A/N: Another day, another chapter! And it's the first double digit chapter. Aw yeah! This fic is also close to 1,500 views! Thank you everyone who's read this chapter. I'm looking forward to posting new ones. Favorites and follows are much appreciated. So are reviews, I love hearing what you have to say about this fic.**

 ***BlibBlabs***

 **-I was trying so hard to find pictures of Bucky's safe apartment so I** **could get the details right. Like I said in the Chapter Nine's BlibBlabs, I've been doing extensive research.**

 **-Has anyone heard the song "You" by Keaton Heston? It was pretty good to listen to while writing some of this chapter. I'd recommend giving it a listen.**

 **-I saw this really pretty-slash-trippy photo today. It was on Sebastian Stan's Instagram, and I was thinking "Wow, the scenery is really nice, but woah! Those clouds are imposing." Check it out; you'll see what I mean.**

 **-Oh, shoutout to Hailey, who I can't PM because guest status. Thank you for your review (which I just saw today because FF decided not to make it show up on my review counter until today). I must be doing something right if you think Bucky and Lana's relationship is realistic. And thank you, everyone else who posted a review, because your reviews are much appreciated.**

 **-Speaking of characters, I can't help but think that Bucky's general protectiveness and brotherliness to Steve in the twentieth century would be transferred over to Lana in the twenty-first century. Just saying, because when he wasn't the fist of HYDRA, he was always a big brother (in fact, I read that Bucky actually has three younger sibling in his family. Of course, they're all probably in nursing homes now).**

 **-I'm currently having to post this using my phone's hotspot because my Internet hates me.**

 ***BlibBlabs Over***

 **-SirFangirl**


	11. Rainy Day Memories

**May 15, 2014.**

Bucky has a hate-love relationship with sleep. Sure, sleeping was pleasant and inviting, but then the nightmares came. Then Bucky would despise the need for sleep. He was thankful for the loud boom of thunder that woke him up from his fitful sleep. Bucky assumed that sleep wasn't coming back for the rest of the night, so he grabbed his journal off of the couch and got up from his slightly uncomfortable sleeping position on the floor. He walked to the panel of two light switches and flipped the switch that turned on the two wall lights near the balcony door. Sitting under the light, Bucky opened up his journal. He read the last entry he made before going to sleep. It was about getting to the safe house, or safe apartment as Lana called it; Lana cooking the canned spaghetti (" _There seems to be a canned everything,"_ Bucky wrote); and listening to Lana talk about her past, which wasn't that great from what Bucky's heard. He looked over more than once two sentences he wrote.

 _She's done bad things. But so have I._

Bad things- they had that in common. They've done bad things. Bad things have happened to them, not good things. Never good things.

The nightmares were shown again in flashes, so Bucky closed his right hand and dug his fingernails into his palm. He focused on the pain and tried to think of something else, but he couldn't get his mind off of the nightmares. Then he remembered he had his journal resting in his lap and picked up his pen and wrote about his nightmares.

 _More faces. More screams. Always the same. Always death._

He closed his journal and tossed it and the pen aside. Bucky closed his eyes and listened to the pitter-patter of the rain in hopes that it would take his mind off of things. His eyes snapped open when Bucky heard Lana mutter something in her sleep. It must've been a dream she was having, hopefully not a nightmare. He went back to listening to the rain and tried to remember something from his past involving rain.

* * *

 _The memory he saw was definitely before World War Two. Before Steve became Captain America, and when Bucky was taking care of him most of the time. Steve was sick with some kind of sickness, and Bucky was taking care of him while Steve's mom had to work at the hospital. Steve kept ragging on him to get to school before it was over and that he can take care of himself, but he'd contradict that statement with a heavy cough. Bucky said that it was fine if he missed a day or two because the teachers would understand why Bucky was gone since Steve was gone as well. "Besides, it's a beautiful day," Bucky defended before going to open the window to give Steve some fresh air. Not even a minute after he opened the window, Bucky had to close it as rain poured over Brooklyn. Steve found the irony funny, even if he couldn't laugh without risking hacking up a lung._

 _"Beautiful day, huh?" Steve quipped._

 _Bucky chuckled and shook his head, "You're a punk."_

 _"Jerk."_

* * *

Bucky smiled at the memory and immediately went to his journal to write it down. Thunder roared outside which made Bucky jump in shock. He shook his head and went back to writing again. Lana stirred in her sleep, which Bucky could hear but not see due to the couch being in the way.

"How long is this stupid storm going to last?" Lana asked tiredly. Bucky saw her silhouette get up from the mattress. She walked over to Bucky, nearly tripping over the couch on the way to him, and sat down next to him. "Thunder wake you up?"

"Yeah," Bucky replied. "You were talking in your sleep a while ago," he said with amusement.

"Was I?" Lana chuckled. "What did I say?"

"I don't know. Couldn't quite hear you."

"Okay." Lana looked at Bucky's open journal. "What're you writing about?"

"Memory," Bucky answered as he handed Lana the journal. He watched Lana read what Bucky wrote. She laughed quietly as she gave the journal back.

"Did you two miss school so much that the teachers were used to it?" Lana questioned.

"Yeah." Bucky racked his brain for something to remember about taking care of Steve. "I only skipped when his mom was working in the hospital."

"Was she a nurse?"

Bucky thought about that question. He nodded, "Yeah. Tuberculosis ward."

Lana let out a noise of disgust, "Poor thing."

"She didn't mind it as long as she got to help people. Steve's the same way too."

"And people say that personality traits can't be inherited," Lana commented as she rested her head against Bucky's shoulder. "You're getting a lot better at remembering things."

"I know." Bucky felt proud that he was, in fact, getting better at remembering. Remembering lets him know that he wasn't always the Winter Soldier, and so do the new memories he's making. He looked down at Lana, who was rubbing between her thumb and index finger a part of the sleeve of Bucky's jacket. Bucky smirked and picked up his pen again.

"Ever the writer," Lana said jokingly. Bucky didn't say anything back as he flipped to the page where he wrote about he and Lana getting to the safe apartment and drew a line under the last paragraph.

 _Thunderstorm woke us up. Lana read the memory I wrote down. She has her head against my shoulder as I'm writing this. She does it often. Leaning against me. I don't mind. I'm getting better at remembering. Remembering makes me feel… human. Yeah. Human. It doesn't make me feel like who I was before the fall. I can't go back to completely being me. I guess I can live with it. This new life isn't so bad. I think that's only because Lana's here. She's… family. I don't think I've used that word in a long time. It's still true. Funny. I thought she was someone out to kill me at first. But she wasn't. I didn't expect to get along with her that much. Sometimes, I think she reminds me of what I remember about me in the past. Sometimes._

Bucky decided to stop writing and closed his journal. He saw Lana's arm stretch across him in a hug. "I think you're family too," Lana said. Bucky smiled. _Family_. That's starting to become a favorite word of his.

* * *

When the rain stopped, it was what was supposed to be daylight had the gray clouds not been there. Bucky and Lana finished off the rest of the granola bars for breakfast as they planned on getting food that wasn't canned after Lana exchanged her euros and US dollars for Romanian _leu_.

"Can you teach me how to fight?" Lana asked, which got Bucky's attention.

"Fight?" he echoed.

Lana nodded, "Yeah. I'm not the best fighter. I mean, did you see me in Timișoara? I was in a chokehold." Bucky remembered seeing that and felt bad that he didn't protect Lana from that. "All of the times I didn't die from a bad guy was either luck or my powers, and I can't always rely on those two. Therefore, I should become a better fighter. So, can you teach me how to fight?"

Bucky wanted to chuckle at how Lana spoke like she was a businesswoman or something, but was more focused on answering Lana's question. "I can. When d'you want to start?"

"After we're done shopping," Lana replied as she got up from the couch to throw away the granola bar wrappers.

* * *

Surprisingly enough, markets were open despite the gray skies and rain-slicked pavement. Most of the stalls were selling mostly fruits and vegetables, but there were some stalls selling baked goods and snacks custom to Romania. There was also a butcher's shop nearby. Bucky was at a stall that was selling plums when Lana walked up to him with a brown paper bag in her hand.

"Hey, I got us something for- are those plums?" Lana asked excitedly.

"Yeah," Bucky answered, confused as to why Lana was so excited about the fruit.

"That's my favorite fruit. I didn't know they were in season yet." She looked up and got the attention of the owner of the stall. Bucky was impressed that Lana was able to speak in Romanian about the price of the plums to the owner. The owner told Lana the price, and Lana gave him a few _leu_ notes. The owner thanked her and gave her a plastic bag to put the three plums in that Lana grabbed. Bucky smirked as Lana thanked the owner and walked away with a bounce in her step.

"You did pretty good talking with that guy," Bucky complimented when he caught up to Lana.

"Thank you." Lana opened up the plastic bag and grabbed one of the plums. She took a bite and smiled in satisfaction. "Yeah, still my favorite fruit."

* * *

Bucky was told by Lana that they should go find a library like Bucky wanted. "Consider it my repayment for your agreeing to teach me how to fight," she stated. Eventually, they found a library that had computers in it as well. Of course, Lana also took it upon herself to teach Bucky how to use a computer.

"They have really stupid names for these- what are they again?" Bucky asked.

"Websites, but what's on screen right now, it's a search engine," Lana answered before taking a bite of snack she got at the market ( _bulz_ is what it's called). "And what do you mean by stupid?"

"Well, Google, Yahoo, Bing- who came up with these names?"

"They had to make it stand out somehow, otherwise people wouldn't remember it. Now," she leaned forward in her seat, "What are you wanting to look up?"

Bucky thought about it with his fingers hovering over the keyboard. Where does he even start? He got an idea and clumsily typed in what he was wanting to look up.

"Going with yourself? Classy," Lana joked. "Oh, click on the first link."

"What's that?" Bucky asked. Lana pointed on the first line of blue text on the screen. "Oh." He moved the mouse (seriously, what is it with these weird names for technology?) and clicked on the link. "Wikipedia?" Bucky questioned. "These names," he muttered. Lana giggled at Bucky's exasperation.

"Okay, this website is mostly accurate."

"Isn't there one that's entirely accurate?"

"Well, this one has references to other websites or books to prove it's accuracy. So, if it has references, then it's probably right."

Bucky sighed, "Alright." He looked at the screen and saw a black-and-white picture of him staring back at him.

"So, that was you in the forties?"

"Yeah," Bucky said distractedly as he was reading the article.

"You look adorable in that picture," Lana gushed jokingly. Bucky was still reading when he noticed something wrong, and he was sure that it was wrong.

"I wasn't born in nineteen-sixteen," he stated in exasperation.

"When were you born then?"

"Nineteen-seventeen." Bucky leaned back in his seat. "Accurate, is it?" he quipped.

"Oh, calm down. Another thing about this website," Lana pushed the keyboard closer to her, "Is that you can fix any mistakes." Bucky watched the screen as Lana fixed the inaccurate birth year. "There, it's fixed. Better?" Bucky looked at Lana in annoyance out of the corner of his eye. Lana only smirked in response. He shook his head and went back to reading the article.

"Howling Commandos?" he read aloud. Bucky moved the mouse and clicked on the text (it was blue, so it had to lead to something). The screen showed an article discussing Captain America's combat unit.

"Huh, you and your buddies were pretty badass back then," Lana commented.

"Is there anyway to get actual pictures of them?" Bucky asked. Memories were forming in the back of his head about his fellow Commandos.

"Yeah, of course. Let me work my magic- figuratively, not literally."

* * *

Bucky left the library with photos to add to his journal and a better knowledge of historical events in the world. "So," Lana said as she walked by him, "Did you get your knowledge fix for the day?"

"I did," Bucky replied as he looked at a photo of him with three of the Howling Commandos. He was able to recognize them as Dum Dum Dugan, Jim Morita, and Gabe Jones.

"Good. So, we'll practice fighting when we get home?"

Bucky nodded absentmindedly. _Home_ \- another word he hasn't used, or heard for that matter, for a long time. He can say that he finally has a home after so long, and that made Bucky feel, well, hopeful.

* * *

 **A/N: A new chapter with bonding and banter and references! Yay! Leave a review or favorite if you enjoy, and drop a follow if you want to get updated on when this story gets... well, updated.**

 ***BlibBlabs***

 **-I made a reference to a little inconsistency found in the Captain America Smithsonian Exhibit shown in CA:TWS. I'm sure you'll find it.**

 **-Also, obligatory reference to plums.**

 **-And there was another reference to the Civil War prequel comic.**

 **-I've read about the infamous Avengers #200 comic. Man, that's a weird bundle of paper.**

 **-Also, _bulz_ , is a Romanian snack that's made of roasted polenta stuffed with cheese, bacon, and sour cream. It sounds pretty delicious. **

**-I tried writing Bucky's journal entries where it's just phrases that sometimes form full sentences. Because who needs commas? Heh.**

 **-I'm pretty sure when he was young, Bucky would skip school whenever Steve was sick and Sarah Rogers couldn't take care of Steve.**

 **-And the teacher would be doing roll call and say Bucky's name only to get no response. So the teacher says, "Is Steven Rogers present?" And when he finds out Steve is gone as well, he's like, "Well, I hope Steven gets well soon," before going back to roll call.**

 ***BlibBlabs Over***

 **-SirFangirl**


	12. Freaky HYDRA Logo

Learning how to fight was like what little Lana had seen in video games. She got a tutorial before dropping into the actual game. Since it was more open than the apartment, they fought on the roof. Bucky taught Lana mostly defensive moves with some bits of offense thrown in. After Lana performed some the moves a few times, she and Bucky fight in order to break up the pattern. At first, Lana could easily learn the moves, but when it came to the full-fledged fighting, she would fall into the same old pattern of attacks. And according to Bucky, she lacked strength in her attacks. "Don't hold back because you're fighting me," he said in response to Lana's protests. She didn't want to hurt him, after all. "Now, let's try it again. Try to throw me off" He got in his fighting stance. Lana did the same and went straight for the offensive. She focused on avoiding predictable attacks. If she assumed Bucky would predict one type of attack, Lana would occasionally do the opposite. "Alright, you threw me off." Bucky commented. "But you're still holding yourself back. If you were fighting someone with the same amount of strength you're using, it wouldn't do much. So-" Bucky stood up straight, like he was a statue. "Punch me."

"What?" Lana asked. "Seriously?"

"Punch me. I'm not going to retaliate, so don't hold yourself back," Bucky commanded. The tone he had made Lana wonder if he'd ever trained people before, be it a HYDRA guy or one of his buddies from the forties.

"Got it." Lana closed her fists and charged at Bucky. She kept repeating the phrase 'not Bucky' in her head as she punched him square in the stomach as hard as she was able. Bucky actually stumbled back. He regained his balance and rubbed the spot where Lana punched him.

"Was that good?" she asked, unsure. Bucky nodded.

"Yeah. That was a good punch."

"Thanks." Lana felt a sense of accomplishment. "Sorry if that bruises."

"I'll be fine. Let's go again."

* * *

Sunlight leaked through the newspapers that covered the windows of the safe apartment. Lana was sprawled on top of the couch, trying to ignore her sore muscles. Bucky walked out of the bathroom with damp hair and in a new change of clothes.

"Sun finally came out," Lana said to him as she pointed at one of the windows, "Of course, it's sunset. Rain clouds don't have the best timing."

"If you say so," Bucky said. Lana saw him start walking to the kitchen, but she didn't bother to sit up and see what he was doing.

"Are your muscles not screaming in pain at you right now?" Lana asked.

"Nope," Bucky answered. Lana heard him moving things around in the kitchen.

"And I guess that's because you're pseudo-Super Soldier."

"Yep."

"And I'm only three-fourths Super Soldier," she mused. "I think if I took all of the doses, then I would have gotten the healing factor that I heard so much about."

"Or you could've died." Bucky added.

"That too." Lana sighed and closed her eyes. She heard Bucky walking back to the couch. Something was placed on her forehead and Lana realized it was one of the plums. She chuckled and grabbed the fruit off of her head. "Really?" she asked when she looked at Bucky, who had a mischievous smirk on his face.

"Figured you were hungry" was his answer as he sat down on the floor in front of the couch. He had the remaining plum in his hand and took a bite out of it.

"Thank you," Lana said as she gently pushed herself up into a sitting position. "Have you ever taught someone how to fight before?" she asked before taking a bite.

"Yeah," Bucky answered.

"Was that before or after HYDRA?"

"Both."

"You've taught HYDRA people how to fight?" Lana asked, curious.

"Well, not really," Bucky answered vaguely.

"But you did fight them?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Who were they?"

"Do you always ask so many questions?" Bucky complained.

Lana shrunk back into the couch. "Sorry," she said quietly. It was easy to forget that HYDRA was an organization bent on world domination, and they'd used Bucky for their gain for over seventy years. She sighed and took another bite from her plum, which seemed to have lost its flavor.

"Sorry for snapping at you," Bucky murmured.

Lana shrugged, "I deserved it."

"Still, I shouldn't have done it."

Lana knew that Bucky wasn't going to accept her dismissal, so she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Bucky's shoulders with the plum still in her hand."Don't worry about it. I'm not mad," she said. Bucky lightly grabbed one of her arms with his right hand. Lana's cheek was getting wet from being pressed against Bucky's hair. She was able to smell the faint scent of new shampoo. "Your hair smells nice."

Bucky chuckled. "Seriously?"

Lana smiled in amusement. "I couldn't help but notice." She removed her arms from Bucky's shoulder and leaned back into the couch.

"I did teach Steve how to fight."

"Steve? And this was when he was all frail and whatnot?"

"Yeah. It was after we found out that America entered the war."

"So, who's idea was it to practice fighting?" Lana asked as she finished off her plum.

"Steve's," Bucky answered. "He was begging me to teach him because he thought it would help him get enlisted. So, I taught him-"

"Wait," Lana interrupted, "Did you teach him how to box?"

"Yeah," Bucky answered in surprise. "How'd you know?"

"You did say you were a boxer. I just guessed from that."

"Good guess," Bucky said as he stood up. "I wasn't surprised that Steve was rejected from service, but I didn't tell him that."

Lana straightened up and looked over the couch with the pit of the plum in her hand. Bucky was grabbing his journal off of the kitchen's island counter, and Lana spotted the nearby wastebasket. As Bucky walked back to the couch with his journal, Lana aimed the plum pit at the wastebasket and threw it. She pumped her fists in the air when the pit sank inside. "Got it!" she cheered. Seconds later, another plum pit sailed into the wastebasket and Lana saw Bucky's mischievous smirk. "Show off," she teased with a playful roll of her eyes.

 **May 16, 2014**

Lana and Bucky were back at the market after Bucky realized they'd run out of plums. The stall that was selling fruit last time Lana and Bucky went to the market wasn't where it should've been, so Lana and Bucky split up to look for a different seller. Lana quietly hummed to the song playing through her Walkman's headphones as she browsed the market stalls. She stopped when she saw a stall that didn't sell plums, but various trinkets including a pair of headphones that were compatible with her Walkman. She headed over to check out headphones. Someone- presumably the stall's owner- asked Lana if she needed help. Lana held up the headphones in response. " _Vorbiţi românește?_ " the stall owner asked.

Lana shrugged. " _Eu vorbesc unele română._ "

"Is English your first language?" the stall owner asked in perfect English. He still had a European accent that Lana couldn't quite place.

"You could say that," Lana answered. "How did you know?"

"English is a very common language." The stall owner gestured to the headphones. "Are you wanting to buy the headphones?"

Lana looked down at the headphones in her hand. "Yes," she nodded, "After I see if they work."

"Be my guest." The stall owner waited patiently as Lana tested the headphones. She had them plugged into the second headphone jack on her Walkman, and to Lana's surprise, they worked well.

"I'll take them," she said.

"Excellent." The stall owner named his price for the headphones. Lana noticed her money supply was dwindling as she pulled out the bills. There was still enough money to last them a short while if Lana didn't spend it on headphones. She sighed, realizing that she was going to have to start doing odd jobs again.

"Is everything alright?" the stall owner asked.

Lana looked up. "Oh, I'm fine. It's just that money doesn't grow on trees." she joked.

"Indeed." The stall owner pushed up the glasses on his face. "My store has been shorthanded of late. I don't have enough help."

Lana could tell what he was aiming at, but she was still cautious. "Help with what, exactly?"

The stall owner explained how he brought his wares up from his house, and often required help in sorting what he wanted to sell. "I also could use help here on my busiest days," he added. "So, what do you say?"

"I appreciate the offer," Lana began as she tapped into the man's mind. The man - Anzor Markov, she learned- harbored no ill intentions and most importantly wasn't HYDRA. "But I have to discuss this with my…" How was she going to explain to him who Bucky was? "Brother." she finished quickly. Hopefully, he hadn't noticed the pause. "He's kind of overprotective of me." That was kind of true, wasn't it?

"I understand," Anzor said. "Please, don't feel the need to rush into this. Take your time to talk about it with your brother."

"Thank you, Mister-?"

"Markov," he filled in and held his hand out. Lana shook his calloused hand and held back the amusement she found in already being one step ahead. "Nice to meet you, Mister Markov. My name is Lana."

* * *

Lana found Bucky almost immediately after getting the new headphones and the job offer from Mister Markov. "I see you found the plums," Lana pointed out the plastic bag.

"Did you always have two pairs of headphones?" Bucky asked as he and Lana began walking back to the apartment. Lana explained the purchase and the job offer.

"You sure it's safe?"

"Yeah, I looked into his head. Nothing in there that seemed unsafe to me." Lana looked down at her Walkman and hit the skip button. Bucky wasn't saying anything one way or the other. "I think I should accept it. The money we have can only last for so long." she spoke. When she looked up, Bucky wasn't beside her. Lana looked back to see Bucky staring down what looked like an alleyway. She walked back to Bucky and looked around. There wasn't anything special about it, besides the fact that it had captured Bucky's attention. "See something?" she asked.

"I know this place." Bucky looked up and down the street before going into the alley. Lana followed behind with both of her headphones now resting around her neck. She looked around the alley while Bucky opened a door so dark it may as well have been charred. Curiosity was burning inside of Lana as she thought of what might be inside. Bucky pushed open the door, revealing a hallway so full of dust it could've been untouched for decades. Bucky flipped the switch for a blinking, fluorescent light before Lana closed the charcoal-colored door. She was forced to stay behind Bucky due to the tight confines of the hallway. Bucky had his knife out of the sheath he hid under his jacket, ready to attack at a moment's notice. They approached a door that greatly contrasted the appearance of the shabby outer door. Lana noticed the handprint scanner on the wall. "Step back," Bucky told her. She did so and watched Bucky pull back his metal fist. The metal-to-metal collision was loud enough to make Lana cover her ears. Bucky punched the door two more times before it fell to the ground in a dented mess.

"Brute force. Nice," Lana commented as she followed Bucky through the unconventionally opened door. The room before her looked like something out of an old spy movie. Gray-green walls, concrete floors, numerous desks and computers- this half of the room was more interesting. The other side of the room held floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets. But the thing that stood out the most was the imposing, black HYDRA insignia staring at them. "That's not creepy at all."

* * *

 **A/N: And a new chapter has arrived! I really took my time on this one, because I didn't want to force myself into making mediocre chapters to post daily. I also had an awesome beta reader help me make this chapter awesome, so go give ThatSassyCaptain some love. This story has also reached over 2,000 views! Yay! Thank you everyone for reading, and leave a review/fav/follow if** **you enjoyed.**

 ***BlibBlabs***

 **-I got a comic book collection centered around the Winter Soldier story arc. It looks pretty great!**

 **-Explaining favorite fandoms to my family can be pretty hard to do sometimes. .**

 **-I had family over last weekend, so that's part of why posting a new chapter took so long. But family is important, so yeah.**

 **-I haven't had much luck in finding a good YA novel recently. The first new novel I got was pretty bad, and the second new novel I got was meh. But I have two other books that make things better.**

 **-I also went on a _The Room_ kick after reading _The Disaster Artist_ by Greg Sestero. The book was hilarious, and _The Room_ is an experience I wait to experience. **

***BlibBlabs Over***

 **-SirFangirl**


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